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Anti Skating adjustment

Hi, I was reading a response to a thread concerning anti skating adjustment. I was hoping someone could give me some advise. I just recently purchased a retipped Monster Cable Genesis 1000MkII while I send my Sigmas Genesis 2000MkII for a new stylus. Anyway, when lowering the new cartridge down on a protractor the cantilever deflects left. I have checked and recheck table balance and azimuth in the horizontal plane. All appears ok. The antiskating seems not to affect the deflection while lowering the cartridge onto the protractor. I have adjust antiskating with the Cardas "balancing plateau" track as well as a Hi Fi News test record. The antiskating adjustment does impact the tonearm movement when rotating a record but not when just lowering the cartridge onto the protractor. When lowering onto a record the deflection is still there but less noticable.
The retipping appears to maybe have affected the compliance of the cartridge. My turntable is an extensively modified AR ES-1 with all of George Merrill mods with an delrin/acrylic clamp and aluminum periphery ring, the tonearm is an Audioquest PT-9.
yesfan3942
nrenter's avatar
nrenter
766 posts
 
Not valid? If you say so.

But, back to the OP, you be better off consulting a tonearm designer and a cartridge manufacturer than an audio forum on anti-skate. You'll get 11 opinions from 10 members.
stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,468 posts
 
It seems that too many of you get over excited about Anti-Skate. It is not nearly as important...or even important at all. Simply add a very tiny bit of anti-skate if it makes you feel less nervous. The force that one corrects with anti-skate is constantly changing with distance the cartridge is from the spindle, the angle of the cartridge relative to the groove, the loudness of that particular area of the record, the lightly or heavily scoring of that particular area of the record, and I'm sure other factors as well. There are those that also say that anti-skate mechanisms themselves can adversly affect tonearm performance, and that they should be disabled.

Regarding Yesfan's cartridge...send it back to be rechecked/repaired. Personally, I would only accept perfection.
lewm
13,019 posts
 
Dear Pojuojuo,
I recently did some internet research on this subject. Most mathematical calculations of AS show that the force applied needs to be but a fraction of the VTF, in agreement with what Nrenter says. If you found otherwise with your cartridge in your tonearm, other factors may be at play. For one thing, you might want to check that your tonearm mounting board is level and plane parallel to the surface of the platter.

However, in my house, in my system, I do find there is some benefit to applying some low amount of AS. Usually I just set AS to the bare minimum above zero and forget it thereafter.
pojuojuo
92 posts
 
Thanks for your inputs...

The fact is that as I said with ALL the SME models if you play a non groove vinyl always the arm goes to the center of the spindle so this cdr test is not valid, even it is not a clue. I also said that a/s force is added into the grooves and if you have no grooves you can't evaluate anything, this is the reason of the a/s tracks in some vinyls like Hifi news test record I have.

As Stringreen said before a/s is constantly changing but you should try to get the best sound possible, at least in my system if I change the a/s force I lose everything
nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 
Hi Pojuojuo, I agree with what Lew stated. But to have some
tangible orientation I use the Image HIFI test record with
tracking ability test. With 70 mu without any buzz from the
R. channel I am complete satisfy and this is in accordance
with an advice from Van den Hul from years ago.

Regards,
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