How often do you check vtf and anti skate on your turntable?

I'd be very interested to get your impressions of using the technique without a scope, but while watching distortion products on an FFT.

 

It is all imperfect for sure.

On the radius being unimportant at lower VTFs, I can offer that as an experiment, I've adjusted VTF such that the onset of mistracking occurs on the 15db/70um test tracks spaced out on the HiFi News album (first, middle, last tracks). This was with an OM10 I think, tracking at 1.4g I think. I was able to hear how the center track required less anti-skating to avoid distortion, when compared to the outside and inside tracks. We're talking a quarter of a gram difference 25mm from the pivot here, which is .03g out at the stylus. Of course, slightly increasing VTF eliminated all mistracking, so it is all rather pointless and just good fun.

In the giant scheme, as I said earlier, I have found that using the anti-skating test tracks, the cantilever deflection method, and the stylus on ungrooved vinyl results have all approximated one another. Having the stylus float in place rather than drift-in will more closely approximate the test tracks, but the difference is minimal.

Now, I've done lots of crazy experiments as I've designed my own tonearm, and Agitater has hit on a critical point above: A lot depends on your bearings. Stiction (static friction) resulting from inferior bearings or design/implementation can make all of this academic. If an arm doesn't have vanishingly low friction, then you'll chase your tail when it comes to anti-skating. If you read some of the blog stuff from Alex @ Korf, you begin to see just how much bearings influence sound quality.

 

Well said.

Then again, Peter Ledermann over at Soundsmith insists that deadwax antiskate adjustment should result in very slow, not significant, inward drift. The danger, as Ledermann correctly points out, is excessive anti-skate. He points to many of the retips he does that show excessive stylus wear on one side because of aggressive anti-skate settings.

What the most experienced (and successful) setup guys try to do is reduce as many variables as possible as close to nominal as possible with a given combination of cartridge, stylus, cantilever, compliance, tonearm bearings, resonant frequency aggregate, turntable design, and respective adjustment limits and sensitivities.

The first thing I do before undertaking a setup is to assess the maximum amount of performance I can reasonably expect out of the combination I’m working with. It is the combination of parts involved also determine which methods and tools to use to achieve the configuration that experience (in general) tells me will help to achieve the expected level of performance. Usually, everything works out fine - a lot of guys for whom I’ve set up cartridges are surprised that (for example) a modest-priced combination can exceed their own expectations. That also goes to show mainly how good contemporary turntables, cartridges and tonearms actually are. Anybody with half a dozen brain cells, the willingness to learn, a modest investment in a couple of crucially important setup tools, and the patience to both learn well and take their time with a setup can do a superb job.

What I’m getting at is that at the very end of the process, setting anti-skate should be a relatively minor consideration. It has to be done - or rather, in a given setup the need for it has to first be determined. There are plenty of tonearms (irrespective of the cartridge installed) on which I’ve entirely disabled anti-skate - The Wand (unipivot) with an Acoustical Systems Fideles or an Ortofon 2M Black or an Ortofon, Quintet Black, Rega RB880 with a Soundsmith Zephyr or a Goldring Ethos or a Zyx
R100 II, among other combinations on various turntables (Origin Live Sovereign, Origin Live Aurora, Rega RP6, Rega P8, Linn LP 12, Avid Diva II SP, Michell Orbe, among others). The more accurately I do each stage of the cartridge setup process, the easier and more accurately each successive stage goes.Whenever anyone is in doubt about their anti-skate setting, I can usually find sloppiness in some other part of their setup. Fixing that sloppiness causes a cascade of succeeding corrections that have to be done, but it goes relatively quickly. Surprisingly often then, anti-skate is taken right off the table and is left disabled.

The biggest ‘crime’ in most home setups I see is a non-level rack or Kallax or credenza, on top of which is some sort of non-level turntable platform supported by some sort of almost-identical-height footers (cork pads that vary slightly in thickness, hockey pucks, isoacoustics pucks, sorbothane balls or half-moon things, Herbie’s Dots, Stillpoints, Cardas myrtlewood blocks, and you-name-it. The whole construct seems solid enough, but is actually a swamp of resonances. Worse still are the apparently rock solid setups - $6000 worth of solid wood credenza on top of which sits a 6” thick, laminated rock maple block about 18” x 20” that of course is couple directly to the top plate of the credenza (or uber-expensive equipment rack in some cases). Again, apparently solid, but none of it is truly level, which means levelling the platter is a challenge which in turn creates multiple angles that store energy and transmit resonances. All of the individual effects are tiny, but cumulatively they add up to a larger negative effect on the maximum amount of good sound that can be expected from the turntable setup. The fewest possible number of layers works best. Positioning turntables as far away from speakers as possible comes next in order of general setup priorities. After that’s all sorted and the platter is truly and consistently level, setup success and the expectations for the final result go up dramatically. Once again, at the end of the tonearm installation and cartridge setup, anti-skate is sometimes irrelevant.

All factory installed tonearms have to be checked for correct spindle-to-pivot distance. A certain percentage leave the factory several millimetres off. Rega tonearms with their fixed positions, are always spot on. Most of the Pro-ject arms on Pro-ject turntables are spot on. Same with factory installed arms from Clearaudio, Technics and a few others. Far too many dealers that assemble turntables for customers do a poor job. Spindle-to-pivot is wrong, azimuth is wrong (and was not even checked), VTA is wrong (and was not even checked), etc., etc., and typically, anti-skate is set the same as VTF. Most of the time - e.g., with a really nice Pro-ject RPM 10 Carbon with its wonderful Pro-ject Evolution tonearm (and an Ortofon MC Windfield) that I worked on in June and the original installation of which a dealer had badly messed up - redoing the cartridge alignment and so on, results in an anti-skate setting of zero/disabled.

 

I've alluded to those papers/articles with skating forces that seem awfully high compared to what I derive via 2-3 commonly accepted methods (including anti-skating test tracks).

I wonder how many turntables include anti-skating mechanisms based on those papers.

I did at one point track down the details on the SME 309 improved, specifically the distances of the notches from the pivot, and the included weight. Some simple math indicated the forces involved closely approximated what was presented in those articles.

 

I thought of this question when linear tracking tonearm were mentioned...would a longer tonearm have less of an issue with anti-skate issues? Not linear tracking, but closer than a shorter tonearm (I think). Not a debate about the + and - of longer vs shorter tonearms

 

Well as the arm length increases towards infinity, it approximates a linear arm, so yes, longer arms and their correspondingly reduced offset angle reduce skating force.

 

Correct, well except the part about offset angle, it's the overhang, but of course they are interrelated so no biggie. The amount of skating force will be proportional to the delta angle between the pivot to stylus line, and the groove tangent line (and that angle gets smaller with a longer arm, along with a smaller overhang value), which is why it starts out high at the outside radius of the record, goes to minimum as the tonearm passes the middle, and then back up some at the inner radius. You can see the skating force versus groove radius in the chart below, and the effect of the different overhang values with each of the 3 major alignments...

 

Seeing as our entire goal is to minimize angle-induced distortion, I felt it was more clear to focus on angle rather than overhang.

 

Phil, that is dumb. The discussion is really about skating forces. Sometimes you're extra dense.

 

I followed the advice from Peter Ledermann's video for setting the anti-skating so there's a slow inward drift. However, when I sent my cartridge for re-tipping, the technician said,

"You could use a little bit more of antiskate. The spindle side wear patch is larger than, almost twice as large as, the edge side. "

This implies I should probably set it so the tonearm doesn't move at all when dropped into the run-out grooves. I did buy the cartridge used with supposedly low hours. So perhaps all the uneven wear occurred in that time-frame? I guess I am not convinced I know what I am doing with regards to anti-skating adjustment.

 

Every time I swap out a headshell and cartridge on my turntable(s).

 

I like to use a blank side lp and place the stylus in the middle of record. I then adjust drift, basically so it DOES not drift but stays put. I believe this is the best way to avoid stylus wear on either side.

As for the question, I only adjust anti-skate when I install a new cartridge, which I am getting ready to do!

 

Fascinating that he can give you that kind of detail. I’ve always been told it should stay still when playing a blank 12”. While I can understand this persons thinking, surely the groove is perfectly capable of telling the needle where to travel without any need for pressure coming from the arm.