how do you determine anti-skate settings?

Let me pass on some information as it relates to Clearaudio pivoted tonearms and phono cartridges and Benz Micro phono cartridges. We retail these lines and use various combinations of these products from eight to twelve hours each day. It's usually pretty nice to have a job where you can listen to the hi-fi all day while you are working.

First, in response to Afc's post, Clearaudio pivoted tonearms do not have anti-skating weights and hooks, but instead feature magnetic anti-skating. It's real simple to adjust and can be adjusted during play if you are careful.

Perhaps the "Clearaudio Rep" that was mentioned was partially misunderstood. Here is what I know based on experience.

Benz Micro phono cartridges track best near the top end of their recommended tracking force range in any tonearm, Clearaudio or not, that I have used them in. In some instances, and in some tonearms, they may track best if they are set up a bit above the top end of the range, but I have not found that to be the case very often, and not at all so far when they are mounted in Clearaudio pivoted tonearms.

I believe it is true of the Benz Micro cartridges, when used in a Clearaudio pivoted arm, that they will perform their best together with zero or nearly no anti-skating force. In other words, Benz cartridges and Clearaudio pivoted tonearms seems to perform best together with the tracking force set near the top of the recommended range and with the magnetic anti-skating set at or near zero.

Clearaudio moving magnet phono cartridges, by comparison, seem to need a bit of anti-skating applied to work optimally with a Clearaudio pivoted tonearm.

Although I haven't tried it, I have every reason to believe that in certain instances that Benz Micro and Clearaudio phono cartridges could pass along bass that certain users would find satisfying if the maximum recommended tracking force is exceeded, but I have not tried this myself.

Things will likely be different when you throw a different tonearm into the mix, which I can attest to based on the anti-skating setting needed when switching to an Ortofon AS Series tonearm, for instance. However, I have generally found that all of the cartridges that I have tried, and I have not tried anywhere near everything in my forty plus years of owning record players, that I like to run all of them at near the top end of the tracking force range that is recommend for each one.

That's all just my opinion. I haven't perfomed any formal studies or listening panel tests, but I do listen to record players a lot. What I do know is that one person can have a different perceived result with this sort of thing than the next person has. That's why it's always wise to do a little bit of careful experimentation on your own to see what suits you best.

Dealer disclaimer.

Jim Pendleton
Osage Audio Products, LLC

Hi Afc,

Yes, the Unify that you have does have the anti-skating mechanism that you describe and not the magnetic type. You are exactly correct. In practice the effect of the settings would be the same.

As I mentioned, for whatever reason the Benz cartridges in particular like little to no anti-skating force when used with Clearaudio pivoted tonearms. Benz cartridges seem to me to work best on the Ortofon AS Series tonearm that I mentioned at about one-fourth of the recommended anti-skating force. This seems to be something a little out of the ordinary in comparison to other cartridges.

My most recent practical experience is with Benz, Clearaudio, Ortofon, and a few brands that I don't carry. The Ortofon and the other brands seem to perform as expected in terms of anti-skating force required in the Clearaudio and Ortofon tonearms. The Clearaudio cartridges seem to require less than the Ortofon cartridges, but more than the Benz.

To answer you Al, yes, I did make it a point to check the deflection carefully when I first ran into this because my first thought was that the setting could not be correct.

All of this may be true with the VPI arms as well, but I do not have any recent comparable experience with them.

But apart from this, I have personally observed better performance by running VTF in the top half, or near the top of the recommended force range on a number of catridges regardless of the anti-skating force.

But that's just my experience. I have worked with a number of tonearms and phono cartridges in the past two years, but far from any majority of them. I can only speak with any kind of knowledge about the limited exposure that I have had during that time. I will mention that I have had a number of customers mention that they get the most satisfaction by running cartridges in their rigs near, or at the top of their recommended VTF ranges.

But that may just mean that I'm not only guy out there with a tin ear.

Jim Pendleton
Osage Audio Products, LLC

As Al has mentioned, I have observed that anti-skating is normally not correct if you try to set it using a flat surface. What we should hope to achieve is to have the stylus squarely track a modulated record groove. This is what we want to do when we are using the record player to listen to music.

Al's method of carefully watching for stylus deflection is a good one, and much can be gleened from simply listening for any distortion as John Tracy mentioned earlier in this discussion. Substantially incorrect anti-skating will many times manifest itself as distortion in one channel and not the other while playing a record that is known to not have groove damage.

Jim Pendleton
Osage Audio Products, LLC