Fr24

it's finally setup on luxman dd turntable.

didn't really need anti skate though I installed one. tried various cart from 1.35g up to 2 grams track force. just sounded really good. 

sound is full fleshed. I won't call it transparent sounding tonearm. it have the muscular quality which is great and excellent bass.

very good easy to setup tonearm. 

Mijostyn, I am just curious. You wrote, "Good anti skating devices diminish force as the arm moves towards the center of the record."  Why would that be "good" necessarily, since we know the skating force waxes and wanes in magnitude, as the stylus moves across the surface of an LP?  And the minimum skating force is certainly not what dominates at the innermost grooves.

Again, 9-11% of VTF is the consensus of the best average anti skating force. Tonearms that have calibrated anti skating use this figure. However, many tonearms are not calibrated. In this case the OP has to make his own weight so he needs to have a way to figure out what exactly he is doing. The WallySkater is one way to test for this. The other has not been marketed yet but if someone wants to copy it for themselves I have no objection. I call it the Gizmo. ( My wife wanted to know what I was doing. I told her I was working on a gizmo.) You can see it on my system page. It has been updated with a permanent digital gauge. It takes a direct measurement of the anti skating force just like you measure VTF except horizontal. 10% worked well according to all my test records which are supposedly overmodulated. The degree of modulation is less important than VTF as a contributing factor. This is also measured at the rim of the record where skating is at it's highest. Good anti skating devices diminish force as the arm moves towards the center of the record. The OP could use a test record to set his arm up. The Hi Fi News Analog Test Record has three anti skate tracks. Use the one that is less modulated. Use the highest modulated track to get the idea of what you are listening for. Defeat the anti skate and listen to this track. The right channel will distort like crazy. The idea is to add anti skate until either the distortion stops or becomes about the same in both channels using the lowest modulated track. This is the cheapest way to get in the ballpark. 

If you don’t use some heavy low compliance cartridge with high tracking force then anti-skating force is very small, especially with advanced stylus profile (normally half of the tracking force). Some nice cartridges track well with only 1.2 g tracking force, anti-staking force in this situation can be as low as 0.6 (if stylus profile is not conical or elliptical).

I have PRO version of FR-64fx now, on this broadcast model anti-skating mechanism removed completely.

I think you can live without anti-skating

OK thank you for help

Too much anti-skate can be just as damaging as too little antiskate. And because the skating force is varying across the surface of an LP at any given moment, finding a setting for anti skate that is just about right, like the temperature of the porridge in the story of the three bears and Goldilocks, is a difficult task, if you worry about it a lot.One way to think about it is if there is audible distortion in the right channel, then you probably should add a little anti-skate force. If you hear audible distortion in the left channel, and you have ruled out other causes, it is possible that you have applied too much anti skate. Just adjust the antiskate to the point where you don’t hear distortion in either channel. That setting won’t be perfect, because there is no perfect. Another bit of gospel about antiskate is that most recommendations for AS as a function of VTF are too high. Use less than recommended.

Dear @anthonya : "   does that help with anti skating as well? "

no it does not function for anti-skate.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

there is a piece of sliding weight hanging on the outside to balance the bearing.. does that help with anti skating as well? 

some guys did it but after that he say fr24 don't need it after.. all hearsay..

my buddy who tried vpi said better to switch off the antiskate. it will bend the cantilever? any body can verify that?

Thanks all for the response. very helpful

Jason, the vast majority of tonearm and cartridge manufacturers disagree vehemently. Although skating changes across the record arms with anti skate track way better than arms without. Anyone can prove that to themselves with a tracking test record. Turn off your anti skating and the right channel will miss track long before the left channel. Fact of life, can't argue with it and so forth. Most of us would never consider an offset arm without anti skating. There is a good reason FR did not survive. These arms are antiques and should be treated as such. Put the in a glass case and look at them once in a while.

I do set the anti-skate on my Pioneer PLX1000 with the Denon 103R. That mechanism is magnetic. I believe it is better than the string/weight.

Awaiting mounting is an FR54. I don't think this has anti-skate either! Joe Grado didn't like anti-skate mechanisms. Since the skating force varies from the outer to inner grooves and with the groove modulation Grado believed that compensation added distortion - the cure was worse than the disease!

I have an FR29 with an ADC magnesium headshell and a Coral Sleeping Beauty mc cartridge. No anti-skate. Mounted on a pre- 1975 Ariston RD TT (the one that Ivor Tiefenbrun copied to make the Linn Sondek). TT mat is thin black-anodized magnesium (doesn't ring!). This whole setup tracks everything flawlessly!

When I saw these traces I understood why someone would prefer a shorter arm and sold my long one. Long arms look cool but IMHO and the opinion of others like Michael Fremer are a bad deal.

Companies like VPI have tried to sell that idea and failed. Every offset pivoted tonearm must have a method of applying an anti skate force equivalent to 10% of the VTF. Could be a hanging weight, a spring or opposing magnets which I think is the best as there is not friction and the force is very predictable. I am not a fan of any S shaped arm with a removable head shell. The inertia is too high and they have a hard time following undulations in the surface of any record. The cantilever winds up following the undulations converting these undulations into an unwanted electrical signal. I have seen oscilloscope traces of this happening.