Antiskating .... The last analog secret

Here's a method for setting antiskate (AS) that's more effective than visual methods for lower compliance carts (and works for any cartridge, subject to the disclaimer at bottom).

1. Play 2-3 sides to warm everything up.

2. Reduce AS to zero.

3. Choose an LP or two containing your most difficult to track passages. Mono is theoretically better than stereo, as Nsgarch mentioned, but it's not essential. It is esential that the trial passages be amongst the toughest-to-track in your vinyl collection.

4. Play these passages and nudge VTF downward until you JUST BARELY hear the cartridge beginning to mistrack (slight fuzziness in the HF's and/or actual bursts of static-like noise, both coinciding with dynamic peaks in the music).

5. If mistracking is:

A) more audible in the R channel, gently increase AS until it's about equal in both channels (or goes away). You won't get it perfectly equal, especially with a stereo LP, but close counts for AS. There's no such thing as "perfect".

B) about equal in both channels, AS is set about right.

C) more audible in the L channel, something other than AS needs adjustment (assuming your AS is truly at "zero").

6. Bump VTF back up slightly until mistracking noises stop, HF's are clear and bass/dynamics sound full again. You're done.

You will be at a much lower AS setting than what is usually considered "normal". This method applies enough AS for clean tracking of your most difficult passages, which is all you need. There's no clear benefit in going higher and there can be a serious detriment (as Thomasheisig's photo demonstrates).

IMPORTANT - DON'T GO NUTS
Relax. Close counts. There is no such thing as "perfect" in antiskating. On real world records the skating force we're trying to counteract is always changing, so no amount of measuring, Wally-Skating, oscilloscoping or any other form of OCD-driven fetishness will provide anything more useful than your ears. Don't waste your time unless you enjoy doing those things for their own sake more than listening to music.

DISCLAIMER - Listeners who do not place low level detail retrieval and reproduction of harmonics near the top of their list of sonic priorities sometimes prefer more AS than this method provides. Increasing AS applies more lateral pressure on the cantilever/suspension interface (again, see Thomasheisig's photo for proof). This dampens cantilever freedom, slows response and muffles HF's and very low level signals. The effects of more AS are VERY similar to what my ears regard as excessive VTF. If your ears don't prioritize low level detail and harmonics, or if your sytem masks them, higher AS levels will produce a purer but less complex sound that you may prefer.

FWIW, the methodology I posted does result in a zero antiskating setting (with our present arm and cartridge). That's where we play every day.

Other carts have produced different results however, so IME it would over-simplify to say "no antiskating". Different stylus profiles suspension behaviors can require "some" AS to avoid mistracking. Every setup is different, as is every LP.

Agree with Salectric about test records (I think we've agreed on this before!). Quite useless for real world purposes.

Great photo, Thomas. Very likely caused by many hours of play with excessive anti-skating.

Calibration with a blank surface is not always the 100% solution.

Calibration with a blank surface is NEVER the right solution, unless you play a lot of LP's with blank surfaces.

Neil,
Great to see you again! Hope all's well. Your AS method, which you've posted in the past, is one of the simple, safe and effective ones, especially for higher compliance carts.

As you said, users of lower compliance cartridges may prefer another method. I'll describe mine below, but I bet you and I would end up with similar settings with any particular arm/cart combo.

Nrenter,
All these lists (TML, ASL, WTF!) are great fun, but I'm so confused. On the TML list I'm either a 3, an 8 or anywhere in between depending on which *part* of a definition I read. To avoid a TML identity crisis I'm selling my rig and going digital! ;-)

Agree with Thomasheisig. I strongly suspect excessive AS for just the reason he just stated. That or physical manhandling of the cantilever are the only two causes I can think of.

Imagine Thomas's cartridge mounted on a tonearm and photographed from the front. The cantilever would be pointing INWARD, toward the center of the platter.

The most probable cause is long periods of use with the stylus locked in the groove and the arm pulling OUTWARD, ie, excessive antiskating. This has caused a breakdown in the elastomers that center the cantilever.

The cartridge is toast, obviously, suitable only for sparking fun discussions on silly forums amongst people with nothing better to do. :-)

I cannot get the distortion to stop coming from the left channel first no matter where I put the anti skating weight.

Start by taking the AS weight off altogether. AS on top level arms and carts should be started at "zero". Adjust upward only if necessary to eliminate RIGHT channel mistracking, in TINY increments.

If you get L channel mistracking first with AS adjusted to zero, something besides AS is causing it, as I noted in my second post above dated 12-19-08 (step number 5.C).

Stefanl,

Your method seems much like Nsgarch's. As he mentioned, the higher the compliance of the cartridge, the better it works.

I would add that this method works best for arm/cartridge combinations which need a fair amount of AS. As one approaches zero AS the effects become less visible.

Both the visible deflection technique and the "start with AS at zero" technique only get you in the ballpark of course. As we all know and have said, fine tuning by ear is required no matter how you start.

Conclusion: for ballparking AS...
- if an arm/cart combo is known to prefer a fair amount of AS, the visible deflection technique may put you in the ballpark quickly
- if an arm/cart combo is known to prefer very little or no AS, starting at zero is likely to be quickest.

***

Stltrains,

I'm using a thinner fishing line than stock, so mine may resonate differently. I hadn't bothered tieing/propping the dogleg up, but after your report I'll try it. Thanks for the tip.

Interesting that your Wally Universal puts the UNIverse all the way out in the slots. So does my Mint protractor, and the greater eff. length should indeed have the benefit you described. Not only do Wally and Yip make the two most precise protractors, they even agree. This must be an analog first.

Fully agree on the tracking ability of the TriPlanar, truly superb.

Belated Merry Holidays to all. Just catching up on this fun and fascinating thread.

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Hevac and Dgad both suggested - correctly - that the damage to Thomasheisig's cartridge could have resulted from sticky tonearm bearings. Most of the discussion is taking place amongst those with tonearms having very high quality bearings (JMW, Phantom, TriPlanar, Vector, etc.), but the danger of poor, dirty or poorly adjusted arm bearings should not be overlooked. That was a good alternative explanation.

Bearing drag on my OL Silver was notably higher than on my TriPlanar. The difference was easy to feel and the Silver, while a great performer at its price point, did not track or play nearly as well.

So we've developed another reason NOT to put very costly cartridges on lesser tonearms: besides not hearing all the cartridge is capable of, an inadequate arm may actually shorten the cartridge's lifespan. More support for Linn's original upgrade hierarchy: table, tonearm, cartridge.

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Bearing drag and arm effective mass always provide some resistance to inward movement, so even arms lacking *any* AS device still apply "some" AS force. We can never actually get to zero AS.

This is true even of linear trackers, whose lateral effective mass resists the slow, inward spiralling of the groove. Those Mapleknoll/Walker/Rockport/Air Tangent guys need to add a PRO-skating device! Hah!

***

Based on suggestions above I took the next obvious step, which Dan apparently also just did: I removed the TriPlanar's AS mechanism altogether.

It isn't difficult and it's reversible. Just be careful when removing the little C-clip that it doesn't fly off somewhere. Once you slide the dogleg off, the post it rides on unthreads pretty easily.

The sonic improvements from removing the AS mechanism were about what we'd all predict: an increase in very low level information, soundstage deeper and improved in the back corners, etc. Not huge or even major, but audible.

As for tracking, most LP's played perfectly. On one stereo LP with powerful operatic vocals I got a tiny amount of L channel mistracking at one tough spot, then an equally tiny amount of R channel mistracking at another. ("Tiny" means a trace of HF fuzziness, not static-like bursts.)

Conclusion: my average AS setting (now as close to zero as possible) is okay but a trace more VTF was needed for those two passages on that LP, given that day's weather, etc. We need remote-controlled, adjustable, VTF-on-the-fly! ;-)

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Yikes! No fluid damping trough. No AS mechanism. No arm rest/lock (in some cases). Our tonearms are disappearing!

I also considered removing the entire cueing mechanism. It's probably a significant resonator with all those fiddly bits and it looks like just two screws. This would be viable if you're comfortable cueing every LP by hand, which Paul isn't, so I didn't do it. Thom likes hand cueing so maybe he'll try. :-)

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Playing just above minimal VTF and setting VTA/SRA for each record demonstrates the truth behind those notional charts in the white paper: that the sweet spot for these parameters is extremely tiny and the curve surrounding them can be very steep. I thought the paper and its charts offered a perspective that could be helpful/useful.

We're on the same track as you Dan, I've removed the entire AS mechanism from the arm, back to the bearing frame, and noted a small improvement.

Also agree with your observations about the weather and its effects. VTF requirements correlate with changes in temperature and humidity. So do AS requirements.

This is predictable from the natural behavior of elastomeric polymers (and thanks to Paul, who did predict it) and was the reason I began experimenting with extremely low AS in the first place. Our results might resemble Stltrain's if we lolled about in warmer climes like his!