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

Showing 2 responses by tobes

Lewm, do you mean dominance in the left channel with no AS? Skating force is towards the centre, inner wall of groove (left channel). AS provides a force towards the outer groove wall (right channel).
There is an interesting take on setting AS here: Guru setup method
I haven't tried all the 'guru' setup tips - and I definitely don't adjust VTA with the precision suggested in the article - but I found the antiskate adjustment method useful.
I've found it important to adjust antiskate and azimuth in an iterative manner. As I dial in azimuth I find I can reduce antiskate and the soundspace becomes bigger, more cohesive and the music more compelling and alive. Very small adjustments to azimuth make a difference IME (or perhaps that's due to the stylus shape I'm using?).