Ancient AR Turntable with NO anti skate

Regarding Stringreen’s advocacy for no anti-skating:

As I mentioned earlier, my experience is comprised of cartridges having relatively high compliance. In recent times a Grace F9E, F9E Ruby, a Soundsmith-retipped F9E Ruby, a Grado Reference Sonata, and currently an Audio Technica AT-ART9. And way back when a Shure and some other AT, with a different turntable and arm. In every one of those cases an anti-skating setting of zero, or anything even close to it, would result in such extreme cantilever deflection toward the outer edge of the record that it would seem preposterous to even try it.

Stringreen mentioned in another thread some time ago that he sees no such deflection. Perhaps that is due to his use of cartridges having lower compliance, or perhaps his arm is applying some amount of anti-skating force even when none is intentionally introduced, or perhaps it is due to some other factor. In any event, while I don’t question or doubt his findings, methinks he is extrapolating too broadly from them.

Regards,
-- Al

Glad I was helpful, Norman.

As a point of information, I’ve found that the procedure I described usually results in an anti-skating force corresponding to about 50% to 60% of VTF.

Best regards,
-- Al

Hi Norman,

Thanks for the additional info.

I've read on several occasions that although it is not uncommon for people to adjust anti-skating using a record having a blank side, that is not an optimal technique.

That is because a basic factor in the origin of skating force is friction between groove wall and stylus, and a blank record of course does not have any groove walls. Therefore the resulting contact and friction are very different than when the stylus is in the groove of a rotating record.

The procedure I've always found to work well, at least with cartridges having medium to high compliance (I have no experience with cartridges having low compliance), and which I’ve found to generally require little if any subsequent fine tuning by ear, is as follows:

1)Observe the cartridge from the front while it is in the groove of a low volume passage of a rotating record, and positioned somewhere in the middle of the record.

2)Adjust anti-skating until deflection of the cantilever to one side (left or right) becomes barely perceptible, relative to its position when the stylus is lifted off of the record. Note the setting.

3)Adjust anti-skating until deflection of the cantilever to the other side (left or right) becomes barely perceptible, relative to its position when the stylus is lifted off of the record. Note the setting.

4)Set anti-skating to the mid-point between those settings.

5)Verify that no perceptible left or right deflection of the cantilever occurs near the beginning and near the end of the record.

Regards,
-- Al

Normansizemore 2-8-2017
I can see however that the stylus is gravitating to the center spindle and that can’t be good for the cartridge assembly.

Normansizemore 2-10-2017
I really hadn’t thought of it that way, but after seeing how my stylus pulls to the center spindle with the skating force off, I just can’t bring myself to leave the skating force off.

When little or no anti-skating force is applied the cantilever, as viewed head-on from the front of the cartridge, will appear to deflect toward the outside edge of a rotating record, reflecting the fact that the arm is gravitating toward the center spindle. Is that what you mean in the statements I’ve quoted?

BTW, IME, which has always been with cartridges having relatively high compliance, I have consistently observed such deflection to occur to a readily perceptible degree when anti-skating is altered as little as 15% or so, in either direction, from a setting that results in no perceptible deflection. While at the same time I can readily find a setting that results in no perceptible deflection **at any point on the record.** Which in turn would seem to negate the argument that anti-anti-skating advocates often cite (and that you referred to above as a reason AR did not provide for it on their turntables) that anti-skating is essentially worthless because skating force changes during the course of a record. And as I see it the fact that an effect may only be correctable to some approximation, perhaps even just a loose approximation, does not in itself provide a justification for ignoring the effect altogether.

Regards,
-- Al