2. analog
  3. 161552-129831

A new way of adjusting anti skate!

I was looking at the Wallyskater, a $250 or so contraption used to set anti skate. https://www.wallyanalog.com/wallyskater  It is reputedly the most accurate way to set anti skate. Talking about fiddly. 

The appropriate figure is 9 to 11 percent of VTF. So if you are tracking at 2 grams you want 0.2 grams of anti skate.
My Charisma tracks at 2.4 grams so I should set the anti skate for 0.24 grams..................................Bright light!.
I readjusted the Syrinx PU3 to zero so that it was floating horizontally. I set up a digital VTF gauge on it's side at the edge of the platter so that the finger lift would be in the cross hairs, activated the anti skate and was easily able to adjust it to 0.24 grams. I started at 0.18 grams and just added a little more. Whatever you measure the anti skate from it has to be at the same radius as the stylus. If you do not have a finger lift at the right location you can tack a toothpick to the head shell and measure from that. As long as you have the whole affair balanced at zero you will be fine. Added cost $0.00 as long as you have a digital VTF gauge. 

I would not buy stock in Wallyskater.
128x128mijostyn

Showing 3 responses by millercarbon

millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 

Skating force is due to overhang. No overhang, no skating force. That simple. This is why tangential tracking arms have no need of anti-skate. Tracking tangentially generates no skating force. 

Once there is overhang then there is skating force, but only when playing a record. This is so obvious it should go without saying. But someone keeps insisting otherwise. If the velocity is zero, there is no skating force. If there is velocity with overhang then there is skating force. Clearly then skating force is related to velocity. QED.

millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 

The 10% rule comes from the number of audiophiles who overthink even the simplest thing to the point it is complicated to incomprehensibility. Then after making something as simple as playing a record darn near impossible they wonder why more don't want to be audiophiles. 

The 10% rule also applies to the amount of time spent enjoying music vs measuring and calibrating. Also 10% is the correct amount to spend on your turntable, the other 90% of course being Wallytracker calibration jigs.

millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
Its crap like this that turns people off records. Reality is, the correct amount of anti-skate varies tremendously across a record and from record to record for the simple fact that groove modulation is the single biggest factor in anti-skate, and its constantly changing. Fortunately the sonic effect is so inaudible no one ever notices! Anti-skate is such a nothing burger VPI has been getting away with their hokey twisted wire trick since like forever. Only every once in a while someone has it so extremely far off they get tracking problems. For this we're supposed to spend $250??!

But lots of guys without much experience look at this kind of stuff, and it all looks so necessary, and so they decide who needs a format that requires $1500 worth of stuff and a degree in engineering? Or they get a rig and then sit there all helpless begging for someone "professional" to please come set it up. 

But I guess there is no money in free alignment pdf downloads, and no limit to the money some guys have to burn, so we can look forward to many more years of ever increasing uselessness from this Wally guy, whether Mike buys stock in it or not.
More to discover