RS-3 owners: Seeking anti-skate help

There is no need for anti-skating force because the stylus is perpendicular to the armtube. The reason you need anti-skating for offset headshells is because the elliptical/line stylus is rotated by between 19 degrees and 23 degrees from the line that goes from the stylus to the pivot point. With the RS-labs arm, the stylus is always perpendicular to the line that goes from the stylus to the pivot point.

For an analogy, think of paddling in a canoe. If you are at the back of the canoe and place the paddle in the water directly behind the back/stern of the canoe, but put the paddle in 'at an angle', the canoe will turn to one side or the other. This is like the lateral 'skating force'. Think of the angle at which you dipped the paddle as the offset angle of a regular headshell.

If you place the paddle in the water perfectly perpendicular to the canoe, the canoe will slow down, but will not turn. This is like the RS-labs headshell. There is no sideways drag due to the stylus.

Now, the stylus does not follow the angle of the cutting lathe as it covers the vinyl groove as well as an offset headshell, which creates some phase error, but the RS-labs arm more than compensates for this with the lack of resonance from the actual armtube.

If you can't already tell, I love my RS-labs arm.

First, Thank you Quiddity for explaining the skating force. I understand it now.

With the RS-labs arm, however, the suggested alignment results in the elimination of skating force at one point (suggested by the manual to be slightly 'inside' (toward the record spindle)) of the grooved surface of the record. At this point, the stylus and arm are perfectly tangential to the groove. For tracks at the outside of the record, the skating force is slightly outward, while for tracks towards the inside the skating force is slightly inward.

Quiddity listed an 'offset' of approximately 95 mm for a typical tonearm wrt causing the skating force. For the RS-labs arm, this is no greater than the about 45 mm at worst. Thus, the skating force is significantly less than for other tonearms.

If you use the RS-3 headshell, and if you wanted similar benefits as for the RS-labs tonearm, you would have to increase the distance of the tonearm pivot from the spindle. The RS-labs arm is set up with underhang, not overhang.

Also, when I had an RB300 and a Syrinx PU3 tonearm, you could hear the music by listening to the cartridge in the groove directly (with the sound on the preamp/amp turned off). This was quite clear, albeit with the RIAA emphasis. With the RS-labs arm, it is almost impossible to hear this. The pivot appears (to me) to eliminate/minimize the transfer of energy from the cartridge into the tonearm. This might also be why it sounds the way it does.