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Help! Antiskate with only a weight...no dial, and she's skating away!

I have a project rpm 10 carbon with 10cc evolution tonearm that has a weight on a string for antiskate. There are three notches on which to attach the string based upon the tracking force range of the cartridge. I currently have an ortofon cadenza bronze tracking at 2.5g and have the antiskate weight in the appropriate notch (according to the Pro-ject manual) from which it hangs. The table is level--checked and adjusted to ensure. The tracking force is at 2.514g (the range for the cadenza is 2.2-2.7 with 2.5 suggested by ortofon) checked with a digital scale (Riverstone Audio digital scale). The soundstage sounds great, vocals are centered, other instruments are placed in space according to the recording... Also the alignment was carefully set up using the WallyTractor and is spot on. 

But sometimes when I lower the stylus to the lead in groove, it will slide very quickly towards the spindle as though no antiskate were present (it doesn’t skip over the record, it falls into the first song groove--and yes I have confirmed that the stylus is present). But it’s a big jump vs just sliding into the groove.

So I found a blank side of an album and lowered the stylus onto the surface and it immediately slid all the way across the surface towards the spindle as though no antiskate were in play. I then disengaged the antiskate weight and experienced the same (expectedly so). But there seemed to be little or no difference between antiskate being engaged/disengaged.

So I engaged the weight again and lowered the stylus, but this time I placed a little extra force on the weight with my finger and was able to get the tonearm to stay in position--applicable antiskate force in play with this extra force. Of course, I have no way of measuring how much extra weight I applied.

The help I need:
Why is the recommended antiskate parameters set by pro-ject seemingly having no effect?
Is something else wrong?
The table and tonearm are obviously manufactured to handle this level of VTF, no?
The tonearm wires don’t appear to be impeding the arm movement.
What can I do to remedy this?
Do I need to do something to remedy this?
I wonder if I’m causing harm to the cantilever with what appears to be no antiskate, yet the music sounds great and the Analogue productions test LP record antiskate tracks "sound" equal to my ears. (But my ears aren’t young anymore, so I don’t think I can place full confidence in that audible test).

Any thoughts, suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
cabalaska

Showing 2 responses by millercarbon

millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
Nothing is ever just one thing. Especially not on records. You cannot have any anti-skate of any kind without some sort of mechanism. That mechanism whatever it is necessarily becomes an integral part of the whole cartridge/tone arm/turntable component. The whole shebang is oscillating and vibrating every which way.  

Sometimes I think they put anti-skate on there just because so many people expect it. It does make a difference you can hear. But whether or not you do hear it, or your rig is even capable of letting you hear it, is another question. Meanwhile VTA, which definitely is a big deal and makes a huge difference, a lot of arms don't have it and even on some very not-cheap tables like yours they make it a PITA. Go figure. 

Don't waste your time weighing and calculating. Total waste of time. The lever arm on that anti-skate device, if you know anything about leverage just look, it is crazy short. They make it short partly to save money, partly to avoid vibration issues (longer vibrates more) and partly to look good. Vast majority of guys want things to look a certain way. Not saying this is you, saying this is the manufacturer mentality. And yes I know what I'm talking about, I'm an advisor and consultant. Just so you know. 

Your blank record thing is a common idea and trope. Yes you should probably have enough anti-skate that it stays put, or even moves slowly outwards. Skating forces are a combination of factors, one of which is groove drag. It should be obvious there's a lot less drag on a flat surface than in a groove. Also more drag in a heavily modulated groove than a silent one. The more you think about it the more you realize what a total tradeoff the whole thing is- and then knowing this hopefully lose a lot less sleep over it. 
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
No, the inner notches are less mechanical leverage, less anti-skate. The owner’s manual is right about that. This method is the same as my Origin Live Conqueror, only the attachment points and adjustments differ but it is the same basic design. It is hard to tell without seeing the weight to know how heavy it is but the whole thing looks like it can’t possibly have enough leverage unless the weight is pretty heavy. Which indeed seems to be the case, not enough anti-skate.

First, no worries you haven’t and won’t harm anything. Second, the test for anti-skate is listening and test tracks and it passes flying colors so that is another reason to know there is nothing to worry about. Finally, you are new to LP so in time will learn this, but some records are not perfectly flat all the way to the edge. Look real close you will see some are kind of thick at the edge then dip down before going flat. I think all that is happening is you have a couple of those, when the stylus comes down on that it hits a flat spot starts skating downhill as it were towards the center gains speed and maybe sometimes skips a bit at the beginning before settling down and all is well. I have one or two of these myself. Next time it happens, cue it back up, line it up to drop right where the music starts instead of the lead-in groove, lower carefully, then see what happens. I bet it plays just fine.

So I’m calling it good enough already and our assignment is to see if there is room to make it even better. Simple project, take one or two appropriately sized metal washers and slide the string through so one sits on top of your counterweight. Wala, you now have more anti-skate force! See if that helps. If you want more simply add another washer. If this works then look for prettier washers. If you even can see it. Looks to me like it will be pretty well hidden. Anyway, there you go, problem solved.

As to why, anti-skate is one of the less critical aspects of setup. Some really expensive tables like VPI use an even hokier and more lame setup if you can imagine that, and almost completely unadjustable as well. To top it all off, it uses the twisting torque of the phono leads. Hard to imagine a dumber method and people do sometimes have problems but that hasn’t slowed them down any, still one of the biggest most respected names around. If VPI don’t sweat it and I don’t sweat it probably you don’t need to either.
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