Antiskate issue.


I had just found out using a test record that my antiskate was way to much. I used close to the tracking force. I know I probably damaged some of my records. I have around 300 hours on the Benz L2. Have I damaged my cartridge also??? I am not an expert at setting up a TT and I made a mistake on this. I have a DP protractor and the set up procedures for the Graham 2.2. I also have an Acoustic Signiture Final Tool. Oh read this. I emailed the factory about a small speed variation. You can adjust it. Less than one minute later I get a call from them!!!!! Talk about service.
128x128blueranger

Showing 2 responses by nsgarch

You probably didn't hurt records or cartridge at "close to the tracking force" but you don't need anywhere that much. It's a "hangover" rule from the days of elliptical styli and low VTF MM cartridges.

The L2 has a high enough compliance (fairly squishy suspension) that you ought to be able to adjust the AS visually. View the cartridge head on with a bright light on it. As you lower the stylus into the groove, if there's too little AS, the cantilever will appear to deflect outward toward the edge of the record. Too little, it will appear to deflect inward. When the AS is just right, it will not deflect either way. Today most MC carts need much lower AS than the old "equal to the tracking force" rule. Van den Hul recommends 1/3 of the tracking force for his cartridges, or more accurately, cartridges with a van den Hul stylus in them.

Don't get frustrated if you're not sure you have it perfect. Close is close enough. If you want to be compulsive, you can put on a vocal soloist or solo guitar, set the preamp to "mono" if possible, and adjust the AS very slightly up or down endlessly until you feel the imaging is perfect.
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My memory is that when tonearm manufacturers began adding antiskate to their tonearms, in the form of springs or strings with weights, their instructions always said to set the antiskate (force) to match the VTF. The reason I put "force" in parentheses is because it was never clear to me, and still isn't, that those AS scales on tonearm dials/weights refer to an actual measurement of sideways force, or whether they're just arbitrary numbers.

Anyway, when the cartridge had a high enough compliance to actually see the deflection, there was no problem just doing it visually, it was so obvious, and that was that. I never ran across the 1/3 figure until I read A.J. van den Hul's very informative and extensive phono faq page -- updated in 2003:

http://www.vandenhul.com/artpap/phono_faq.htm

Tracking at the lowest possible VTF is also something that belongs to the MM/elliptical stylus era. I'm not sure why, but perhaps it had to do with the extremely high compliance of those cartridges and the ultra lightweight tonearms of the time. A typical Shure cartridge tracked at .75-1.5 gm, and the cool thing was to get them to track at .5 gm, especially if you had a great lightweight tonearm like the old Infinity Black Widow!

While times and designs change, physics remains constant. Today's MC cartridges have lower compliance, higher tracking force and micro-ridge styli. And everyone now seems to have discovered that they track better at the high end of their VTF range rather than the low end. That, along with careful SRA adjustment, results in less groove wear, counterintuitive as that may seem to some. But the more extensive use of MC cartridges now, is IMO what has made antiskating adjustment a more important issue than it used to be.
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