XV-1S and Antiskate

On a grooveless record the POINT of the stylus rides on a flat, unmodulated surface. The contact surfaces don't touch anything.

When you listen to music the SIDES of the stylus ride on a pair of opposed, modulated walls. The point never touches anything.

These are two quite different conditions. Extrapolating from one to the other is fraught with untested assumptions. By analogy, you tested Z-rated tires on a warm, dry track, found them to perform well at a certain psi, then extrapolated that psi to winter tires for driving in snow or off-road tires for driving in mud or sand. Experienced drivers know better.

Skating forces do exist. They can be approximately compensated for with anti-skating. I say "approximately" because on real records the amount of skating force is ever-changing. The question becomes, how much (if any) anti-skating to use for real records? There's no simple or perfect answer and there are several factors to consider. Here are some:

1. Anti-skating may extend the life of a stylus. OTOH, cartridges with modern stylus profiles like the XV-1S tend to wear out their suspensions before their styli. When you have that rebuilt you'll get a new cantilever-stylus anyway. (Actually, the XV-1S tends to have its full monty cantilever snapped off before ANYTHING wears out. Of course playing with an unprotected stick is another issue.)

2. Anti-skating stresses a suspension, so one could argue that it further shortens the most short-lived part of the cartridge. Hah!

3. Anti-skating impairs sonics. You said the sound doesn't change that much, but then rather vaguely said anti-skating makes it "warmer". It changes the sound in my system and I hear very specific things. As with any form of dampening, pre-pressuring the cantilever against the suspension attenuates HF's, slows rise times and reduces amplitudes. This could be called "warmer", I call it dulled and lifeless. Like Audiofeil, I've heard this with the XV-1S and other top level cartridges, including several of my own.

4. My amp and preamp builder, Nick Doshi, states as one of his core design principles, "allow as few gain blocks as possible". If you've never heard one of his units you may not appreciate the significance, but I do. Anti-skating is a gain block. It inhibits cantilever movement in exactly the same way that excessive VTF does.

There's no right or wrong (other than using grooveless records to adjust parameters for playing grooved ones) but FWIW I bought my system to play music and choose to adjust it for optimal sonics. If this slightly reduces some component's lifetime, oh well. An occasional Shiraz or single malt may effect my component lifetime too, that's a tradeoff I'm willing to make. Of course there are risks I won't take, regardless of the excitement, but we'd have to discuss those on another forum. ;-)

Doug

P.S. While experimenting with lower and lower amounts of anti-skating I actually went through a period of tweaking it for each LP. The differences in tracking performance and sonics from very tiny changes were quite audible. I now use none because my main cartridge no longer needs it to track even the toughest passages.

P.P.S. As I no longer use anti-skating, I removed the device from my (TriPlanar) tonearm altogether. This had a small but beneficial effect in lowering the arm's noise floor. The fewer twiddly bits to vibrate and put noise into an arm, the better.

Thanks Doug for the comprehensive answer and you bring some clarity to this issue. I know the XV-1s is a fantastic tracker so much so that I thought it might hiding the need for more anti skate. The grooveless record test just suggested that some antiskate was required. What I didn't know was how strong the XV-1s is as you suggest. Wouldn't want to snap off the cantilever just to see how strong it is :-)

Would you consider the damping fluid in the Phantom to be a "Gain block"? I am finding some damping fluid is required to tame the high frequencies on the XV-1s otherwise the top end can be bright and brittle on some records.

John

I agree with Doug that the grooveless LP is useless for setting anti-skate, but apart from that, lets admit that skating force is a result of the offset angle of the headshell on a pivoted tonearm plus the frictional forces generated as a stylus traces a groove. Ergo, no combination of cartridge and pivoted tonearm cum offset headshell is exempt from skating force, no matter how wonderful or expensive the cartridge and tonearm may be. So the choice not to use any anti-skating is simply a choice based on how you like your sound; it is not an indication that skating force is absent.

Doug, How is anti-skating equivalent to a gain block? I think Nick Dolshi must be referring to active devices in the signal path that add gain. So....?

I tried nearly every setting from AS to no AS. Yes, no AS is definitely different, but in my opinion only "better in the first minute". I am back with AS, but as little as possible in combination with looking what movement the needle is going to do. When Antiskate is done wrong (too high), you won't do yourself a favor.

Antiskate

Such a result will never happen, when you don't use any AS at all.
This cartridge is destroyed completely based on wrong AS.

Graham Phantom Bearing fluid
In a way it is a bit dependent on the overall performance of your System. IMO it is best, when only the bearing tip is in the fluid. when it is too high, the Sound will get slow, anemic.
the problem is, when you do the cross check at one, the result is not final. The fluid is cold and needs some time to go down. When you make it warm, it is better for comparisons.
Based on this Temperature issue I used bearing oil instead of the original fluid.

Musichead,

I heard an XV-1S cantilever snap from across the room once. The owner was aligning the cart and had one brief moment of inattention. Be careful, it can be done without really trying.

Agree with Lewm and Syntax that the decision of how much anti-skating to use, if any, must balance sonics vs. the desire to counteract this unavoidable force. Definitely a YMMV, there is no perfect or correct answer.

***
As to Lewm's question about gain blocks, Nick didn't limit his principle to "active devices in the signal path" and I doubt he'd agree to. A poor quality capacitor or resistor will act as a gain block, though it's not active. A crappy power supply will act as a gain block, though it's technically not in the signal path. I wouldn't accept either of these proposed limitations.

Even if we did, I could argue that a cantilever is an active (or at least kinetic) device. It's powered by groove modulations rather than electricity, but if we somehow prevented it from moving there would be zero signal.

It's certainly in the signal path, that's clear. There's nothing else between groove modulations and generator and if we removed the cantilever there would be zero signal. It's not just in the signal path, it IS the signal path.

So, think about what happens INSIDE a cartridge when we apply an external lateral (or vertical) pressure to the tonearm: the cantilever (signal path) is artificially pressured against the elastomers in the suspension.

Press any vibrating rod into any elastomer and what happens to the vibrations?
1. Rise times are slowed, always.
2. Amplitudes are attenuated, always.
The exact effects will vary with frequency and with the materials involved, but this is as clear and direct an example of a gain block as I can imagine, and it's precisely what excessive anti-skating AND excessive VTF do.

FWIW and IME, some cartridges that eventually play well with no A/S do need a little when new. The suspension may need to relax before the cart can track tough passages without a touch of A/S.

***
I wouldn't regard a Graham's damping fluid as a gain block. It's more like an out-of-signal-path resonance filter. Using too much does sound exactly as Syntax described on a 2.2.

***
Excessive A/S can do what Syntax's scary photo showed. Low or zero A/S can never do that under any circumstances.