Graham Phantom Anti-Skate. Is it effective at all?

... Graham did not change the Arch Angle of these tubes.

Whaaaat??? They offer longer armwands to reduce tracking angle error but neglect to reduce the headshell offset angle? If so, that's brainless.

All the more reason to follow Philb777's advice: get a Feickert or Mint protractor. I have a Mint. The improvement it made to my alignment and sonics was not subtle. It's a professional's tool. The jigs and protractors supplied by Graham, TriPlanar and the like are toys by comparison.

P.S. Agree with Stringreen and Psag. Anti-skating isn't that important, and in my system it clearly degrades sonics. The longer the armtube the less important it becomes... assuming of course that the cartrdige is actually aligned at the correct zenith angle (which apparently will not be parallel to the headshell... oy!)

Syntax and Rockitman,

Thanks for sharing your experiences. It seems that some Graham armwands may be angled differently than others. That is useful information... caveat emptor.

That said, having these different experiences hardly justifies personal invective. As you're posting publically I presume you're hoping to sway opinions. Indulging in insults will do that, but perhaps not in your favor. Please stop.

As Downunder points out, comparing a standard Mint protractor (Baerwald) with the Graham jig (non-Baerwald) is comparing apples with oranges. Any sonic differences cannot reasonably be ascribed to the device, per se, but will rather result from the differing null points and the resulting tracking angle error differential at every point along the stylus arc.

That said, the Mint is several orders of magnitude more precise than the supplied jig. If one had both, in versions designed for the *same* alignment scheme, one's results with the Mint would necessarily be more accurate and repeatable.

Yip would make a Mint protractor for Graham's preferred alignment scheme (whatever it may be). One need only email him the tonearm mounting distance, effective length (or overhang) and the offset angle. The protractor's arc and the intended null points can be calculated from there.

Hey... I agree with Judy! I too have never done this. No kidding.

Tilting would put uneven pressure on the TT bearing. That would cause eccentric wear, impact speed stability and shorten the useful life of the table.

Realistically, this might not be a serious concern if you have a lightweight platter and/or an inexpensive bearing. My platter weighs nearly 40 lbs. and a replacement bearing would cost me around $1K... so it would be a foolish risk for me. Your Aries platter is lighter but the VPI platter bearing is fairly loose fitting, which would increase the rate of wear from an eccentric load. Tilting an Aries seems penny wise but possibly pound foolish.

VPI makes an optional anti-skate device for their JMW tonearms. If you feel a need for anti-skating, why not just spring for that?

Agree with Don_c55.

The sonic and musical improvements from defeating (and eventually removing) the anti-skate device from my tonearm were considerable. The sound floor was noticeably lowered and micro-dynamics increased... more music with more jump.

IME, asymmetric stylus wear is possible but the actual risk is slight. Many cartridges wear out their suspensions before stylus wear becomes an issue. With such cartridges, the theoretical risk of asymmetric stylus wear becomes irrelevant.

As previously discussed on this forum, anti-skating often becomes a liability for listeners who are keenly aware of the sonic effects of all tonearm adjustments. If you routinely tweak VTF and SRA by ear on an record-by-record basis (because you hear and appreciate the sonic results, not for the sake of tweaking), you may find that anti-skating is unnecessary for clean tracking. You may decide that hearing more lifelike musical reproduction is worth more than the theoretical risk.

YMMV of course. Results will vary with cartridges, tonearms, accuracy of setup and of course one's ears.

Unfortunately, vinyl-philes can no longer rely on dealers to optimize their vinyl setups. Dealer knowledge has withered since the CD overturned the LP nearly 30 years ago. That withering will accelerate as physical media recede altogether in favor of downloads and fileserver storage.

The body of knowledge on forums like this exceeds that of all but a handful of dealers. Glad you had a good outcome!

Good caution by Lew. There's no question that skating forces exist. I don't deny physics and I doubt Don does either. I suggested caution in my last sentence but Lew described the correct procedure.

Well, actually, one can ignore it, but listen carefully, especially to the R channel fidelity, with vs without at least a smidge of anti-skate applied, before disabling the anti-skate device. That's my advice. Judge for yourself whether you want to apply anti-skate or not and how much to apply, by direct experimentation.

Exactly right. I played many LPs while tweaking A/S and VTF from one passage to the next, learning exactly how much of each was needed for clean R channel tracking while optimizing sonics. With my favored cartridges on my tonearm, no A/S tracks cleanly and sounds best. I know others whose rigs, like Lew's, need a smidge for optimal performance. Very few rigs require more than a smidge.

The constant outward deflection of the arm... exerts a force that inhibits the stylus and produces a side damping. One wants the stylus to be absolutely free to negotiate its travels.

Bingo! That's what I hear. It sounds exactly like using too much VTF.

How much is "excessive"? With my best cartridge, *any* amount of A/S audibly compresses dynamics and raises the sound floor.

Totally agree with Dover's methodology, very astute and technically correct IMO. However, I prefer the improved sonics from zero lateral damping and from reducing the doohickeys hanging off my tonearm. I buy gear and LPs to listen to music. If optimizing sonics has some slight impact on the life of my gear or LPs I won't live long enough to hear it, but I'd notice impaired sonics in a heartbeat.

John,

You quoted Stringreen's contention about why tonearms include A/S but also addressed your rebuttal to me, as though I had seconded that statement. I didn't and I don't. Please don't ask me to defend statements I haven't made.

I'm unaware that any tonearm designer (except Harry Weisfeld) has publically stated why their tonearms offer A/S. Like you, I'm prepared to believe they do so in an attempt to counter these proven (if largely unquantifiable) forces.


***

If you complain about the effects of the outward force applied using antiskate, but to where does the inward force magically disappear when not using it? None of the anti skate advocates have addressed this, nor why the unequal forces mysteriously don't cause distortion.

The inward force doesn't magically disappear, obviously. However, it does not necessarily result in distortion. Here's why:

Skating forces put an inward bias on the stylus. The stylus wants to skate inward but is constrained by the inner groovewall. Of course the stylus may lose contact with the outer groovewall. THAT will cause R channel distortion. However, so long as steady contact is maintained with both groovewalls, no distortion will occur. If the stylus traces the grooves accurately, it will reproduce accurately (for its part).

The question becomes, how best to maintain constant stylus-groovewall contact. As I've repeatedly said, with MY cartridge on MY tonearm, this is best achieved by zero lateral force and very careful tuning of VTF (I routinely tweak by much less than .01g). As I've also repeatedly said, other rigs may and often do respond differently.

***

I'm open minded. I'd be happy to use an A/S device that operated correctly. Unfortunately, the mechanics of a correctly operating A/S device, while theoretically possible to describe, are virtually impossible to achieve in practice.

Skating forces act on the stylus (NOT the tonearm). Therefore, the ideal A/S device would counteract those forces AT THE STYLUS. The notional perfect device would be a self-adjusting, elastic thread attached to the STYLUS and pulling outward. Aside from being practically impossible to build and operate, even this otherwise perfect solution would still be challenged by not knowing exactly how much outward pull is needed to counteract the varying amount of skating force encountered from one musical passage to the next. Still, if such a device existed or could exist, I'd give it a try.

***

Unfortunately, every real A/S device acts on the TONEARM. This is the only practical way to build it but this incorrect implemention causes the distortions Stringreen and I dislike, because it applies the counteracting lateral force at the wrong place.

The LP is pulling inward on the stylus while the A/S device is pulling outward on the tonearm. Where are these counteracting forces mediated? In the only place that there's elasticity to prevent something breaking: the elastic suspension between the cantilever and the cartridge body.

As Stringreeen correctly stated, this external pressure causes artificial damping of the cantilever. This would not occur in our notional perfect A/S device, but as we've seen, that does not and probably cannot exist. With A/S applied at the tonearm, in MY system, the sonic degradation is instantly audible. Your system or ears may well respond differently, of course.