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Anti Anti Skate?

Mike42

Mike42

Heard it all before...
Anyone else on here not use it and still manage to sleep at night?

I dislike the 'heath robinson' VPI fishing line anti skate contraption, so don't use it. I don't hear any distortion but that might be cos my hearing isn't perfect. The chap at SoundSmith says its simple physics, even if you dont hear any distortion its irrevocably damaging your records and stylus :eek:
 
Mike42 said:
The chap at SoundSmith says its simple physics, even if you dont hear any distortion its irrevocably damaging your records and stylus :eek:
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He is right, though the longer the arm or the less the headshell offset angle the less is needed.

I typically run with half to 2/3rds the tracking weight, which is about where it sounds right to my ears (I start to hear any more than that as a negative). Checking my old styluses under a microscope suggests that’s about right, I’m seeing very little asymmetry. Anti-skate is clearly imperfect as is so much to do with vinyl replay as the force varies with position, amplitude and tip geometry, but my view is some is certainly better than none.

I’d not recommend running with none unless you are using a 12” arm and heavy tracking cart such as an SPU. There seems to be some at least semi-credible debate there, but anything shorter with an offset will wear the stylus and vinyl unevenly exactly as physics dictates.

PS Honami Koetsu, who certainly knew a thing or two about cartridges, didn’t IIRC like anti-skate. Obviously a voice worth listening to, but I’d still argue the physics remains what it is.
 
Has anyone actually seen any articles etc where the actual amount of force being applied on the stylus by the record grooves was measured (and how it varied across the track of the arm etc)? I've always assumed the values displayed on the actual dial are just for ease of use rather than the true force being applied to counter what's actually happening at the stylus.
 
You'll see any adverse effects from under or over biasing. After a couple of hundred hours- maybe more, the canti. will begin to slew away from straight ahead.

I think there are so many factors (stylus profile, VTF, arm length, model of cart., accuracy and type of anti-skate device, possibly canti. material etc.) that it's nigh impossible to have rules. With a highish end LOMC (with fine line or similar profile) playing at 2g, a max of one third may be a guide on 9" arms. However, as Tony mentions above, the requirements for a 12" arm are much less; virtually none in some circumstances (Koetsus, e.g.)

The benefits of anti-skate are, I think, more prevalent on the inner grooves but I could be wrong on that.
 
narabdela said:
I think the concept was in its infancy back in the early sixties.
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Maybe early sixties (were AR T/Ts around then?) but I think my Decca unipivot had sth in '67 and SME certainly had their customary string by '67 at the latest. Can't remember my Goldring G75 and others, but I do agree that anti-skate was not on most audiophiles' lists of things to fuss about. Most people were still on mono, radiograms and autochangers at the cusp of the fifties and sixties, but more stereo records coming to the market spurred wannabe hifi people like me a few years later.
 
Mike Reed said:
Can't remember my Goldring G75 and others, but I do agree that anti-skate was not on most audiophiles' lists of things to fuss about.
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The GL75 had a thread and weight anti-skate. It was a bit behind the times as it was such a crazy high mass arm and it arrived on the map around the time Shure and SME were heading towards low-mass high-compliance and 1g VTF cartridges. It certainly had bias compensation though.
 
Think of it like this.

Imagine you’ve got a dead straight arm, cart is in line. And a dead straight groove and that’s running along. Everything is happy, no problems yeah?

Now imagine an invisible hand pops up and gently pushes at your cartridge, on the side, at about 1-2g of pressure. So that’s going into the suspension and the stylus tip.

That’s the skate. (Force)

Clearly it won’t quite now track the same right to left and you’ll eventually get uneven wear at the tip.

All the weight/string or magnet or whatever device does is to cancel that out so that there’s no adverse side force going through the cartridge down onto your stylus.
 
We run a WAND PLUS 9.5" tonearm on our springless LP12 hot-rod.

No anti-skate sounds and performs best here.
 
I use visuals (stylus behaviour on inner runout) to set anti skate and not values. A smooth and slow run out to the centre of the record should be the aim. Adjust until happy. When all parameters are set accurately I’ve found anti skate values to be more or less around the recommended value.

Not using anti skate will see your cantilever go off centre over extended period. You’ll then have a bigger distortion issue.
 
Eoin said:
Clearly it won’t quite now track the same right to left and you’ll eventually get uneven wear at the tip.
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Yes, I think it's quite easy to imagine the extra pressure on the outer groove but anti-skate has the effect of pulling the arm outwards, which is counter-intuitive. However, despite my jaded memory, I have a feeling the the action of the stylus tracing the circular groove motion is to put pressure on the inner groove due to some property of physics which was probably always beyond me. Once upon a time it made sense though,

I'm sure there's a simple (physics) explanation which would endorse that it's the inner grooves which need more anti-skate than the outer ones.
 
It’s just the forces not lining up. There’s drag on the stylus. If you imagine an invisible thread pulling back on the tip, you can imagine how that’s going to partly pull it sideways (the force isn’t going through the arm pivot point but it’s off to one side a bit
 
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I'd suggest that Orsonic cart' only indicates anti-skate for itself. Too many factors in play with biasing and I certainly wouldn't want to swap cart's in my fixed headshells out of misplaced interest.

For canti's which have slewed a bit due to over/under biasing, I wonder if either of these options would work. The first can be dismissed, I feel due to unproductive wear on the stylus.

(a) Reverse the bias error and run the cart. until canti. is back to straight-ahead again, or (b) set up the cart. with a good protractor to allow for the slewed angle. However, not at all sure that the canti./stylus isn't struttin' its stuff despite the offset angle. Brain hurts !
 
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