HFNR and antiskate on SME 3009/III


When I have my SME3009/III set at approx. 2Gm on the antiskate, and listen to the torture track on the HFNR test record, I get a buzzing in the right channel. Pulling gently on the antiskate string removes the buzz, so I equate that to increasing the antiskate.

Well, if I do that so that it doesn't buzz, the darn thing will not cue up on the outside of the record -- the tonearm flies right off the record. (!)

The antiskate pulley has been lined up (per SME instructions) so that it is perpendicular to the tonearm at the start of the record, and fairly skewed by the end. My thought (and it's dangerous when I think) is that the SME instructions are wrong, and it should be perpendicular when the tonearm is at the inside of the record, not the outside.

Anyone else have this issue?
lousytourist

Showing 1 response by hdm

There is an excellent post on Audioasylum today about this. Go over there and read it. To simplify things, what you want to do with that section of the record is get it so that you get EQUAL (but low level buzzing) on each channel. Getting no buzzing on either channel is going to result in grossly higher or lower antiskating than necessary. Once you've done this, fine tune from there setting by ear if necessary. I would trust my ears more than anything else. The Vdh method above was not even close with my table/arm/cartridge combo; Vdh essentially recommends very little antiskate (as little as 1/3 of VTF running the VTF very slightly higher than recommended) and it definitely didn't work for me. My tonearm is older, though and supposedly has some issues with the antiskate mechanism deteriorating to the point of needing overcompensation (which I also found info on at Audioasylum) which is, in fact, how it has worked out.

Go to the vinyl asylum at Audioasylum and do searches on your tonearm, cartridge and antiskate. But be prepared to invest some time reading; there's a lot of info there and it's a bit of a controversial topic with a lot of varying opinions.