Results from Eliminating Anti-Skate


I removed my anti-skate device from my VPI tonearm, and the improvement is nothing short of astonishing. I had anti-skate set very low since the 12 inch tonearm needs very little anti-skate. Naturally in removing the device, I had to reset the arm which may (or may not {I was very carful setting it up before}) account for the difference in sound, but with the elimination of anti-skate, there is much better dynamic contrasts, much better bass, much cleaner and clearer midrange, and sweeter highs. I think that adding anti-skate deadened the sound. Try removing the device....not just setting the gizmo to 0, but remove the entire device and have a listen. I have a VPI Superscout/Classic platter/10.5i/Benz LPS/used in balanced mode.
stringreen

Showing 3 responses by marakanetz

some of the records will make stylus slide and scratch the very first track. make sure that you're landing your needle right onto the first track than to prevent sliding.
I suspect my Technoarm is balanced to have some magnitude of an antiskate even if I set dial all the way to zero so as I believe with many other arms. Dialing antiskate will simply increase the action in case there are many warped records that may inflixt sliding and scratching the first track.
My preference is to place needle right on track as a habbit with antiskate set to zero. This way the stylus wear is minimized.