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Stylus shape and skating force

I've been owning a new Ortofon 2M Bronze for few days, and I owned an Ortofon 530 Mk II. Plus, I had the chance to try a couple of Clearaudio's (Beta and Virtuoso) and another bunch of entry level cartridges.
The latest have elliptical stili, while both the Ortofons have fine-line stili.
My turntable is a Clearaudio Emotion with Satisfy toneram (sapphire/ceramic bearings and magnetic antiskating).

The thing is: while Ortofon's fine-line stylus retrieves a higher level of details and keeps distortion to a minimum it appears to have a strange behavior.
A conical or elliptical stylus, when placed on a blank record (or at the beginning, in the lead-in area), behaves predictably: it just sits there floating in and out according to the antiskaing settings.

My Ortofon's, instead, literally "flies" towards the spindle, no matter how much antiskating I set. In fact, I can set it to a maximum and it will just slow the tonearm motion of a small fraction.
The problem comes when it's time to play a record: if the stylus is not lowered right into a groove, it's pushed so hard towards the center that it will skip even the first grooves for a couple of millimeters! So, instead of lowering it at the beginning of the record, and wait for the lead-in to make its job, I have to take great care and place it over the first grooves of the music. Which means I loose the first seconds of music. Quite annoying...

Now you might argue: you need to add more antiskating than allowed by your tonearm.
Not really. It tracks to 15 mN and according to the tonearm manual the antiskating has to be set to a minimum. My ears suggest me the same thing and even a test record tells me that maximum antiskating is totally wrong and the right value is close to the minimum (the test records, as usual, wants a bit more).

So what I have is a stylus that when into the grooves tracks wonderfully and is subjected to a regular skating force, but on unmodulated surfaces "feels" an enormous force leading it to the centre.

Anyone noticed the same problems with exotic stili, or can give me some hints on the possible causes (I don't think there's a solution..)?

Thank you in advance
nebelmeer80

Showing 1 response by nebelmeer80

nebelmeer80 OP
4 posts
 
Thanks to all those who replied, expecially to Kirkus and Doudgeacon who confirmed my thoughts.
I always thought that setting the antiskating on an ungrooved record was just useless, for the reasons you explained, but you know... after the millionth "tips & tricks for analogue" suggesting that, I just gave it a try. I can't really understand why so many people use and suggest that method.
I reckoned that it must have been related to the stylus shape, though I was thinking to a wider tip rather than sharper (wider = more contact surface -> more friction)
But what really matters is that we came to the conclusion that it's just the stylus shape. So I will live with it.
The problem is that Ortofon's quality, in my experience, isn't really up to their name. 2 out of 2 cartridges where delivered with a bent cantilever (the sound was dreadful) and had to return them... so in this situation when something appears weird it's difficult to understand if it is another defect or not.
Plus their stupid customer care policy which demands all the communication to the local distributor (who has no knowlegde of what he's selling) ain't of help at all.
This will probably be my last Ortofon, I'm looking for an Audiotechnica with Microline stylus as a replacement when its time will come.

Again, thanks to all and have a nice day
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