Does removing anti-skating really improve sound?

mijostyn

 the most important thing I have learned in this passionate hobby over the last 55 years is, Never Trust Your Ears.

Surely you meant to say that you can never trust YOUR ears. How on Earth would you know about anyone else? But trust me when I say, if your 55 years has taught you not to trust your own ears, I believe you.

Gentlemen! Reading comprehension time!

Q: Where did I say anyone suggested to tilt the turntable?
A: Nowhere!

What I said was "there's always an audiophile who can think of a way..."
Did some audiophile think of a way? Clearly so.

Do we know the difference between think and do? Jury appears to be out on that one! 

Will we be sure to read more carefully before telling someone how carefully they should read? Let's hope so!

Thank you!

Actually since the arm pivots then the tilt angle would have to be constantly adjusted during play. Since the tilt angle would need to be roughly perpendicular to the cartridge, and since no cartridge alignments result in it being perfectly tangent except at two points, then it would hardly ever be tilted exactly at the spindle. So you're both wrong! lol!

Got to say, whoever came up with this idea, its a beaut. I find it oddly comforting that however hard it is to properly play back a record (and it is really, really hard!) there's always an audiophile who can think of a way of complicating it to virtual impossibility!

lewm and especially pegasus, right on. This is another one of those things that looks simple enough in theory but gets complicated fast in practice, mainly because in theory everything is static when in reality everything is dynamic and constantly moving. The blank record demonstrates skating but can't be used to set skating force because its blank. These forces are constantly changing depending on groove modulation. Then they change even more when the whole record is going back and forth, which it always does, because the spindle hole is never perfectly in the center, on and on. Good call pegasus catching what no one ever mentions, damping. Even Fremer never mentioned that, and he never misses anything! Good one!

I'm a little surprised at not hearing any difference with my arm. Well not that surprised. It was a real quick and dirty test. The Conqueror uses the fishing line with weight method. I simply moved it so the line wasn't going through the hoop and sat the weight down. The loop the wire goes over, the adjusting rod, all of which for sure is vibrating and messing things up when a record is playing, all that was left in place. The way I see it, if I hear a big improvement like tubelvr1 heard then the rest comes off. But it better be worth the extra stylus wear too. And it wasn't even close.

So pretty much like I thought- there's so much difference in design and implementation that you just can't get away with blanket conclusions. Does removing anti-skating really improve the sound? It depends.

Hard to believe, but sounds virtually the same. Maybe a tiny bit more open and present without. Maybe. Nowhere near enough to be worth even a tiny risk of faster/uneven wear. Oh well. No surprise really. Origin Live Conqueror. Not like they were ever likely to have left that stone unturned.

This thread has me keen to try mine without tonight. Origin Live Conqueror, uses the fishing line weight method, easy to disconnect, will have to give it a try tonight.

tubelvr1:

Thank you millercarbon for the detailed explanation. Does anti skating affect loudness of a channel also? I believe after removing the weight my right channel sounds equal to the left whereas before it was slightly louder.

Read back through my first post and recall the right channel is to your right as you look at the record, and this is the direction anti-skate is pulling the arm, putting more pressure on the right. 

Now at this point it helps to think about exactly how this whole thing works. 

Down at the business end the groove is pushing the stylus left and right and up and down, which makes the other end of the cantilever move just the opposite. At the end of the cantilever is either a magnet (in moving magnet cartridges) or a coil (in moving coils) either way it doesn't matter. What does matter is that the coil (or magnet) be centered where the cartridge designer wants it to be. Too much one way or the other and the resulting output will not be in balance.

This by the way is the real reason behind setting tracking force. Its not wear. Its because too much (or too little) VTF will put the magnet or coil outside its optimal zone. 

Hardly anyone understands this. That's how fast you can learn and leapfrog in audiophileland. 

So anyway volume isn't normally the big reason for anti-skate, but now you can understand why you could be hearing it.

This is mistaken. While stylus shape can influence skating force, the actual cause of the force is the pickup arm offset. That's why true linear tracking arms have no skating force. There are also a few pivoted arms that have no offset; they also have no skating force.

As a matter of fact cleeds this is mistaken. Tangential tracking arms have no skating force because they are tangential. They have zero overhang.

Your true linear tracking arm will skate the minute you set it up with overhang. 

tubelvr1,

What you have discovered is one of the more important facts about turntables- each and every one is its own unique animal. Even two of the exact same model can sound different simply due to where they are sited- rack, table or wall stand for example. It can be frustrating, because there are no simple answers. Or it can be exciting, because it opens up endless opportunities for getting exceptional performance from simple tweaks like you just did.

In all cases the correct way of going about it is what you just did: try it and listen. So congrats on that.

Now as far as anti-skating goes, here's what to listen for: breakup and/or sibilance. Both are, or can be, due to mistracking. Sibilance more often than not is in the pressing and when that is the case will be heard equally in both channels. What you want to listen for is a pattern of mistracking coming more from one channel than the other. 

Anti-skating pulls the arm away from the center. If it pulls too much then you're more likely going to get mistracking and breakup of the inner groove side. If it pulls not enough then it'll be the outer side of the groove. 

Now the right channel is on the right (away from the center) so too much anti-skate will tend to give left channel breakup. And vice versa.

So listen for breakup and if you don't hear any- or if its equally left and right- then relax and enjoy your newfound performance!