For VPI Unipivot Owners, do you use antiskating?

Doug...beautifully put. I just wonder if those who don't use anti-skate have found that one side of the groove is noisier, than the other. I have records that are 40 years or more older, and play beautifully. I too have removed the a/s gizmo from my arm, and others, and too have found that the gizmo itself is deleterious.

To all posters: Thanks for all the very interesting responses. Think I'll stick with HW and the no AS crowd. At least for the time being. I am looking for the Telarc Omnidisc and might re-evaluate then.

Doug (and Adeep42),

Whatever the rights and wrongs, it is not helpful to state that the method Lederman uses somehow negates the fact of what he says about cartridge wear. The "appeal to authority" would concern the fact, if it is true, that:

every re-tip he would do ,the cartridge would be worn real bad on one side due to wrong anti-skating.

not whether, in contrast to the VPI designer, who, as you say,

prefers the sonics of his tonearms with no A/S gizmo (rather like Stringreen, Dopogue and I).

One is a matter of fact, like the existence of skating forces and their consequences; the other a matter of preference.

John

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John,

My point #4 was intended as a response to PL's (reported) use of a blank disk to adjust A/S. As no reason was cited in support of this (supposed) preference, invoking PL's name in support of it is purely an appeal to authority.

However, the second and third paragraphs of #4 unnecessarily muddied the waters and do suggest the error you noted. Please consider them withdrawn, and thanks for keeping me honest!

Doug

I read PL's short treatise on AS, and it was unclear to me just what part of the LP he wants his disciples to use for setting AS. If you read his text carefully, he seems to be talking about the very short in duration end of play area, just before the cartridge swings toward the spindle. At least that's the way I read it. I probably need to read it again. If he's really just talking about a blank LP, then I am a bit troubled, as I think it makes sense to set AS based on how the stylus behaves in a groove. After all, groove friction is the genesis of the skating force in the first place. I nowadays take the numb nuts approach of just setting every tonearm at its most minimal amount of AS. If the LPs sound well balanced with that setting, I leave bad enough alone. I do also know that in my hands, my Triplanar sounded bad in the R channel when I tried "no AS"; I had to invoke at least some AS to get rid of obvious distortion in the R channel. This I know is contrary to Doug's experience with the Triplanar, but there it is. Maybe the stylus shape is responsible for the difference in the way Doug and I hear the Triplanar vis a vis AS. Or maybe cartridge compliance plays a role too. What's very important to keep in mind is that there IS no one correct AS setting, because the skating force is very inconstant, as someone else pointed out above.