Anti Skating adjustment

Thanks Oldears! I totally agree and suspect that either the suspension (piano wire tension) has somehow been affected or the damper material is causing it. Soundsmith retipped the cartridge with a ruby cantilever just recently from the original diamond coated boron type. The length of the cantilever appears a little longer than the original and the compliance seems to be higher, although if just the cantilever/stylus was changed, I would think that the suspension would not have been affected. The A/S does appear to work correctly when spinning a "flat" track like the Cardas record. I will recheck again. I never really gave this much attention to all this until this cartridge came along.
Should one make VTF, overhang, zeneth, and azimuth alignments with no A/S then after all is setup then adjust A/S? Then adjust A/S (or bias)with either a test record (which checks for distortion only at 300Hz) or as Soundsmith recommends by listening to a mono track and adjusting for least or equal bleed through on the "empty" channel? In the past I would set VTF and A/S the same (as Jelco/Audioquest recommends) then set physical orientation and then recheck VTF after that? The last adjustment would be VTA.

Yep, I just rechecked the bias with no VTF (balanced) and the A/S dial set to 0 produces no horizontal movement when "blowing" straight down on the headshell from above. Just a slight amount movement on the dial does start to move the tonearm away from the spindle. I set the VTF at 1.7grams with digital gauge and with A/S dial at zero there is still deflection easily seen. The sylus tip geometry is correct or at least looks straight down and vertical in relationship with the cantilever. It has to be the suspension!! I just bought this cartridge on Audiogon from an owner who had the retip service conducted by Soundsmith just recently. I would think that Peter at Soundsmith would check the suspension on arrival and before shipment out. I can't see how one would damage the suspension (previous owner) and not break the ruby cantilever. Oh well...my loss!

I talked to Peter today concerning the cartridge and he is willing to look at it again with a new RA#. Don't know how this occurred, but the suspension or dampers seems to be the problem. I don't know enough about the internal construction of this cartridge but it should be very similar to the ZYX cartridges today since Nakatsuka-san built them. I have heard that he does not use any rubber dampers and that age should not be an issue, but I'm not sure. What this has brought up though is the Anti-skating factor. I think we all should check our tonearms with balancing for zero VTF and setting A/S to zero to ensure that there is no residual side movement of the tonearm. I always set the VTF and A/S the same as Jelco/Audioquest recommends for the PT-9. With the VTF and A/S set at say 1.5 grams (minimum tracking force for this cartridge) there is a substantial side movement toward the edge of platter. I still think that the flat surface tracks for antiskating on the Cardas and HiFi News records in the center of the LP is a good starting point, then either a bias track of some old Shure test records, or Peter's recommendation for equal crosstalk of the silent track while playing a mono track between channels is a good method. I do think that A/S should not be the same as VTF and much lower.

I sent the cartridge with the suspected suspension problem to Peter at Soundsmith. I have verified no problems with turntable or tonearm by mounting different cartridges and they don't exhibit any problems. My original post was concerning antiskating and it's possible effect with this cartridges weird cantilever deflection when applying VTF.
Peter said that he can't duplicate the problem but it's definitely got one!