Mistracking

I reiterate; the range for your Black, is 1.4 to 1.7G, so- you can try .2 more VTF, without exceeding the recommendations. Further- the Shibata stylus is very sensitive to VTA and Rake Angle adjustments. Does your table's arm allow for those? I'd still suggest obtaining a test record, and judging the cart's performance or making adjustments, via the tracking test cuts(controlled and accurate).

Another good reason for the purchase of the Shure Audio Obstacle Course test record: the anti-skate test track.

Mr S- Please, tell me: How can a cartridge, with it's anti-skate out of adjustment, ruin a track with no grooves? Mr D- I've found the anti-skate track, on the Shure disc, to be very beneficial. It's saved me a lot of time, when setting up cartridge/tonearm/table combinations(my own and others', over the years). Of course; everything needs to be verified aurally(and further adjusted, perhaps), but- I've found the blank test track, a much more accurate tool than most manufacturers' calibrated anti-skate adjusters or VTF/weight estimates(ie: Those given for Magnepan's shot-in-the-bucket system).

I find it interesting that both Shure(a company that MAY know just a LITTLE BIT about cartridges, and their function on a record surface) and Nautilus(which pressed some of the highest quality discs in the 70's and 80's), both included blank 'Anti-Skate' tracks, on their analog test records. I can't say much for Stereo Review's magazine(and never missed it), but their Model SRT 14 test record includes an excellent anti-skate test, consisting of two simultaneous tones of 300 and 303Hz. The phase of the tones varies between 0 and 360 degrees about 3 times each second. At 0 degrees; the groove cut is completely lateral, at 180; completely vertical. The overall level of the signal starts out low and increases. To make a long story short: Positioning oneself equidistant from both speakers; you listen for mistracking(a buzz which will start at some recording level) from one or the other speaker, and adjust your anti-skate in the other direction, until the sound occurs simultaneously, in both channels. Utilizing one of the blank tracks, from the first two test records mentioned, then verifying the result(which was never far off) with the 'SRT 14' test, saved me a lot of time, when I was in the business. And- I never had a customer complaint, regarding the results.

HEAR, HEAR!