Ancient AR Turntable with NO anti skate


A friend had me over to listen to his restored late 60's Acoustic Research turntable.  While listening, I noticed that the somewhat awkward looking tonearm had no anti skate.  Looking closely at the stylus assembly, it wasn't drifting or pulling toward the center spindle.  It seemed to track clean and true through the entire LP.  The arm is the original stock AR arm and couldn't be more that 8.5" or 9" in length.  I am just curious how AR pulls that off with such a short arm?  I have seen several 12" arms (Audio Technica for example) that dispense with anti skate completely but never a smaller one.  By the way, the table sounded wonderful and the cartridge was a Denon 103R.

Thanks,

Norman

 
normansizemore

Showing 1 response by ct0517

normansizemore
Done correctly, the dreaded tangential tonearm can be the last word on the matter. Tracking perfectly. Makes one wonder why we so many pivitol tonearms and so few tangential?


Norman - I think you answered your own question in the same paragraph when you used the words .............."dreaded tangential tonearm"
8^0
.......audiophiles and perception, sometimes, can go hand in hand.

"Done correctly" is the key. It needs to work, and it needs to work for a long time too. without a lot of hassle. There are good and bad designs for everything.

This kind of reminds me of the early Beta vs VHS thing...VHS won out because you could fit more I Love Lucy episodes on one tape.

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So Stringreen you continue to defend your position of no antiskate here and on other threads. And why not...many have tried to defy physics, even in this hobby. So let me ask you ..

Do you drive your car with the front right tire down a few PSI ?

Why not settle this and take your "used" cart to Peter at SS, or one of the other cart rebuilders. Let him get back to you on its wear pattern.