I own a WallySkater tool. I am not some novice. I have been setting up turntables for over 50 years. I have attended many seminars over the years, listening to many experts in the industry talk about setup and design of their turntables and tonearms. I find the WallySkater to be a very important tool in my setup kit. There is nothing on the market that can tell you what effect tonearm bearing and internal wiring have on your tonearm’s anti-skate when it is set to zero. Every tonearm is different and all have some percentage of anti-skate. The only way to check it is with a WallySkater tool. My present arm is a Graham Phantom II, at zero setting it has a little less than 1%. I had a Jelco 750 when set to zero had 2.5%. The last VPI JMW 12 I owned had 1.5% and that was with NO twist in the wire. So as you can see without that knowledge you would already be off when setting anti-skate.
Yes everybody is right that there is no perfect setting because anti-skate decreases as you go across the record. The WallySkater allows you to know what the percentage is at the beginning, middle and end of the record and you can adjust for those differences to be more consistent across the album. You can’t judge that by ear. When setting anti-skate on your tonearm, how accurate is that dial you are turning or when you move that weight and string to a certain position. Do you really know what you are setting it at. Without a WallySkater tool you are just guessing.
Some people are happy with setting up a cartridge with a printout from a pdf file. Some set VTF with just the scale markings on the tonearm weight. Some set the Azimuth by ear and some set anti-skate by a dial or a weight or by sight. That is ok, if you are happy doing things that way good for you, enjoy the music. But if you want to optimize the performance of your turntable, get maximum life from your cartridge and put minimal wear on the record groove, invest in some good setup tools.
I have a question, would you want your mechanic to align your car’s front end with a flashlight taped to the front tire pointing at the garage door and a yardstick to measure or would you rather him use an alignment rack with lasers, precision scales and levels to do the job ? Which do you think would give the better outcome?
Yes everybody is right that there is no perfect setting because anti-skate decreases as you go across the record. The WallySkater allows you to know what the percentage is at the beginning, middle and end of the record and you can adjust for those differences to be more consistent across the album. You can’t judge that by ear. When setting anti-skate on your tonearm, how accurate is that dial you are turning or when you move that weight and string to a certain position. Do you really know what you are setting it at. Without a WallySkater tool you are just guessing.
Some people are happy with setting up a cartridge with a printout from a pdf file. Some set VTF with just the scale markings on the tonearm weight. Some set the Azimuth by ear and some set anti-skate by a dial or a weight or by sight. That is ok, if you are happy doing things that way good for you, enjoy the music. But if you want to optimize the performance of your turntable, get maximum life from your cartridge and put minimal wear on the record groove, invest in some good setup tools.
I have a question, would you want your mechanic to align your car’s front end with a flashlight taped to the front tire pointing at the garage door and a yardstick to measure or would you rather him use an alignment rack with lasers, precision scales and levels to do the job ? Which do you think would give the better outcome?