Ditching anti-skate?


Had some issues with the anti-skate settings on my Clearaudio TT. No matter how the weight was adjusted, the arm was always swinging back to the periphery of the record when I used the arm riser. So, I asked my dealer, who sent me to his distributor....what he said surprised me. Basically, he said that anti-skate is useless. A myth propogated by customers feeling that no anti-skate adjustment will make customers thing that the design is "incomplete." He says that anti-skate actually causes the stylus to "wobble" in the grooves, increasing wear to both record and stylus, as well as robbing the TT of bass, since most of the bass in records is at the bottom of the grooves. So, I bagged the anti-skate completely. Right or wrong?
afc

Showing 1 response by sutherk

I run my anti-skate control at about 75%-80% of the recommended value. That is, I run my cartridge at 2.05 grams VTF so the anti-skate control is supposed to be set at 2 to match but I find that setting it at 1.5-1.6 gives me greater soundstaging and "freedom" of sound in terms of air around instruments etc.

Any less than this and I get strange sounds around the two null-points on the record and any more that the 1.5-1.6 starts to crush the soundstage.