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Zero Antiskate vs Stylus Wear

This article, based on a long term study, was “plagiarised” from another Forum. It’s quite an old article so apologies to “older heads” for whom this may be old news.
It comes from an era when light VTF = good, but was not necessarily true, however the basic principle of long term wear looks sound.
Styli were tested to destruction over their full lifecycle.

http://www.audiomods.co.uk/papers/kogen_skatingforce.PDF

Viewers may have to cut & paste but in the event of difficulty with the link I will give a brief summary :

Of 14 cartridge samples tested without bias, 9 of them suffered excessive wear on the inner groove. One was neutral and the remaining 4 were “outer wall”.
When bias compensation was applied to a group of 6 samples, the wear pattern that resulted was symmetrical.

Given the strong and logical argument that skating damages styli asymmetrically – and gives a skewed reading of the LP over time, the “deviations” are a concern i.e. why 4 of them behaved oppositely.
Poor bearings? Arm cable too stiff? Wrong geometry?

IMO most turntable enthusiasts considered it self evident that unilateral force would cause this type of wear pattern so we didn’t need to be told but documented study, even one as old as this, is always interesting.
The photograph of the spherical stylus is poorly resolved on this copy but it makes the point quite graphically.

Based on long term experience that the simplest things can affect the sound of a turntable, I cannot deny that the idea of “de-stressing” the cantilever by removing a poorly directed/located AS force IS attractive and may produce a degree of audible benefit…at first...(?!?!?!!!)
The doubter in me always asks the question : can a mechanical assembly successfully zero out all mechanical influence and give a pure result? (If true zero AS is the goal even arm damping might be prohibited?)

The principle of using excessive VTF (up to 50% more) to achieve the same “trackability”, without bias, it was suggested, merely accelerates the unilateral wear & tear with (presumably) commensurate damage to the LP(?)
The proposed compensation of up to ”50% extra VTF” sounded a bit excessive to me.
(I’d balk at applying more than 0.1g over maximum.)

Old as it is, I found this study mildly unsettling.
Comments and opinions are invited from both Zero-antiskate adherents and those who always use AS.
moonglum
actusreus
733 posts
 
Moonglum,

I just noticed this tread. As a VPI Classic owner, I found that the sound from table and my Lyra Delos is better with no anti-skate applied. I believe that's the overall consensus among VPI owners, as is Harry's opinion. I experimented with the anti-skating device and a test record, but varying the anti-skate force made no difference with the test record. I also have never noticed any cantilever deflection as the stylus hits the lead-in groove so I stopped worrying about this issue. It's possible that the tonearm wire (in my case silver Valhalla) provides just enough of anti-skate force to make any additional anti-skate unnecessary. I can't say for sure, but I think anti-skating is not a general yes or no proposition, but needs to be discussed and evaluated with regard to a particular tonearm set-up. That's why studies and tests such as the one you mention might be of some theoretical interest, but have little practical value. My 2 cents.
nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 
To deny Newton looks to me ridiculous. The real problem is the different skate force depending from the record radius as well from the stylus shape. Those are also mechanical facts. The only tonearm I know of with variable anti skate provision and correct opproach of the problem(s) involved is the Sony PUA 237 (+ PUA 12'' ). This however does not mean that the involved problems are easy to solve otherwise every tonearm designer would already done it.

Regards,
tonywinsc
583 posts
 
This link is to an old post where I made some comments about Anti-skating. This article is very good and the article's conclusions, fortunately for me, are about the same as I stated in my post.
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1325141286&openusid&zzTonywinsc&4&5#Tonywinsc
I did some research and as I recall, the record materials , ie. vinyls, used became more consistent in the 70s and 80s which is good because the coefficient of friction is the main contributor of skating force.
Also interesting to note is the article stated that a constant Anti-Skating force from start to finish is a minor factor with respect to performance and stylus wear. Setting AS force by ear may/or may not be optimum because no AS force will result in uneven stylus wear. I set mine by the dial on my tonearm; but my final check is with a test record.
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rauliruegas
12,876 posts
 
Dear Moonglum: Thank's to brought here again the AS critical and misunderstood AS subject.

I know that you started this thread because the worry of stylus wear but over and behind the stylus wear subject the AS issue has more critical implications.

Like Nandric pointed out: we can deny Newton laws that apply to the AS subject as Tonywinsc posted.

Some of us audiophiles said that we hear better LP performance quality level with out AS but this is only a subjective point that we can't really prove in any ways other that " I like it that way " that for the overall subject research means almost nothing.

That old Audio article you linked is a learning one ( for say the least ) on the AS subject that kill all and for ever different " myths " about and against AS.

Between other things we can read there the importance to the AS aplication that the cartridge/tonearm overhang stay in precise/accurate way according the geometry set up alternative we choosed ( Löfgren, Baerwald, Stevenson and the like. ) and here we have to remember that each one we make changes on VTA/VTF we are changing too overhang and we have to re-set because that overhang change affect the AS force and tracking cartridge habilities/tracking distortion.

According with that AS study and by common sense AS aplication improves tracking cartridge habilities that means more recovery music information from the record grooves with lower distortions and this sole/unique fact makes that AS parameter must be aplicated always in a pivoted tonearm that has offset angle characteristic.

IMHO, AS is not something that we use it if want or not, I repeat it is a must to. Now, maybe some of us heard no improvements through the AS aplication because that AS force aplication is not very well aplicated by the tonearm design but not because AS is useless: no, it is not.

The PUA 237 is a clever idea on the tonearm AS use and if we look to the AT 1010/1100 tonearm designs we can confirm what the study showed: that differnt stylus shape needs different AS use.

The AS overall subject as many other audio subjects is not solved yet at 100%, so we have to expect that things on AS use improves in the near future.

I for onece will be to re-set all my tonearm/cartridge I use according with what we are learning here, this means using AS in the more precise/accuarte way I can with the tonearm /cartridge I have because one of my main goals in my audio system is to lower distortions at each single audio link in the system chain and improving cartridge tracking is a primary way to achieve that target.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.
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