Graham Phantom set up


Dear Phantom owners.
Can you tell me how you set up the antiskate accurately.
I am using a Dynavector XV's tracking at 2.0G. Where should the "thumbwheel" be on the shaft. Beginning, middle or end. Should i get myself a Wally skater to adjust accurately. Not sure if Wally is still in business though.

What about azymuth. I adjusted it by eye with the cartridge sitting on a mirror. I have tried with a voltmeter and a 1khz test tone Cardas record but i can not get any reading on my voltmeter when connected to the amp speaker terminals when the tone is playing/sounding. Perhaps the volume control on the preamp was not loud enough. Again, should i get myself a Wally Analog Shop. I do not want to break the bank here.
Any comments much appreciated. Sly
smoffatt
I don't have a Phantom, though a friend has that arm and we set antiskating by ear. To do this, we used a Shure test record that has instruments being played at progressively higher levels. At some level, the cartridge will begin to mistrack. The mistracking will be heard first in one channel or more predominantly in one channel. The mistracking means that the corresponding groove wall is losing contact with the stylus. If it is the right channel that is mistracking the most, it means that the outer groove is losing contact and you have to INCREASE antiskating force. If the left is losing contact you have too much antiskating being applied.

To set azimuth, I first examine the stylus under magnification to determine that if the cartridge's geometry is, to begin with, perfect. If it is not perfect, I return the cartridge (given the price of these things, that is not unreasonable). If the stylus is perfectly vertical, then using a reflective surface to determine visually that the cartridge itself is perfectly vertical works. I have used the VOM approach with a multimeter to confirm the results. But, I would prefer physically vertical alignment (visual) to proper electrical alignment of the signal generating elements (determined by use of the VOM) because of concern with wear of the stylus and damage to the record if physical alignment is off. To do the VOM approach, you need to measure the voltage delivered to an amplifier output (i.e., to a speaker or a dummy load), not a preamp, to get a big enough signal to make a meaningful measurement. I used the Wally analogue shop for this purpose myself, but I had to borrow an amp because my 6 w/ch amp did not produce a strong enough signal for the measurement. Even done with the Wally gear, it is hard to get consistent results (even better would be to filter the output to remove noise from the measurement). I would stick with the visual approach.