Tonearms without anti-skate, damage to records?

Bad deal Marty. I just replaced a Spectral cartridge used with way too much antiskating dialed in and the cantilever was permanently deflected towards the left groove wall. The same can happen with no antiskating but the deflection would be to towards the right groove wall. No antiskating also causes mistracking of the right channel to take place prematurely. Mistracking damages the groove wall.

@fsonicsmith1 , exactly. After complaining about the price and trying to come up with a better way to do this, the WallySkater is by far the most reliable way to set antiskating. Jonathan Carr of Lyra fame has suggested setting antiskating by observing the deflection of the cantilever as the stylus settles into the groove. So, I tried it with a MSL Signature Platinum then checked it with the Wallyskater and darn if it did not land exactly on 11%. I'm not sure if this technique would work with a very low compliance cartridge and I would have to do it quite a few more times to see how reliable it is, but the beauty of the Wallyskater is that as long as your tonearm has good bearings it is perfectly reliable and very reassuring and it does not rely of the observational capability of the user. If you can spend 10K on a cartridge, $250 for a WallySkater is nothing. It is a bit figgity to set up but once you are use to it set up takes all of two minutes. 

@larryi , Not Cheap? Check out the Reed 5T. Of the three I lean towards the LT. It really is a brilliant design and I would have one except it will not fit on my current turntable. To understand the way it works you have to look up the patent which is online. The arm stays correctly oriented by following a magnetic track. The energy for this comes entirely from groove friction which is normally wasted by heat. From a functional perspective it is way less problematic than an air bearing arm. The only design issue that is not optimal is that it can not be a neutral balance arm. It is stable balance. The reason for this is the secondary horizontal bearing takes up the space where you would normally put the vertical bearing in a neutral balance arm. As long as you clamp your records correctly it does not matter.  

@dover,  unfortunately, not true for straight line trackers because of the very high horizontal effective mass. The stylus and cantilever have to drag this along and even with an air bearing you can observe the cantilever deflecting and if level is not dead on it can be a real battle. This is why the Reed arms and the Schroder LT are so exceptional as they do not suffer from that problem.You should check out the patent on the Schroder LT, brilliant example of lateral thinking.

@fsonicsmith1 you are right that many antiskating devices are rather crude. IMHO the best are magnetic. No friction and continuously variable adjustment. With the Schroder CB you can see the smooth adjustment with the WallySkater and there is no added friction. It also dampens the resonance frequency.

@clearthinker , While the Aeroarm is the best air bearing arm design there are issues with such a short arm. VTA changes more dramatically with elevation and the vertical effective mass can not be too low or you will start getting problems in the audio range. The horizontal effective mass is still too high. To see the problem best watch your cantilever with an eccentric record. The cantilever will lead the tonearm.  If you tap your turntable on the side you will see the cantilever wobble at a very low frequency. If you are determined to have tangential tracking get a Schroder LT. I promise you will never look back.

@dover, Not even Eminent Technology can defeat the laws of physics. Your statement about the lateral forces being less than a properly set up pivoted arm are false, almost comically so. That is like saying it is easier to push a pickup truck than it is a shopping cart. If you really want a very cool tangential tracker get a Reed 5T.

@rauliruegas , 50% is WAY too much. The proper amount of AS is 9 to 11% depending on the stylus. 9% for Spherical to 11% for line contact. The type of AS mechanism also is very important. Magnetic AS devices have no additional friction or parts that can resonate like strings. Forget about hearing, too many psychological factors. You can see the effect of AS when you lower the stylus onto the record. The cantilever should remain dead straight. With too much AS it will deflect to the right channel and will start mistracking on that side first. With too little AS the cantilever will deflect towards the left channel and will start mistracking on that side first.  Clearthinker should not perform this test as he obviously has a hard time seeing cantilever deflection. With the cantilever deflected the coils are no longer symmetrical in the magnetic gap something that Lyra designer Mr Carr strives to maintain. This can, at least theoretically, cause trouble with channel balance, crosstalk and as a result imaging. That sense of "spaciousness" that some audiophiles seem to like is the image falling apart. I can demonstrate this. Just like tube sound this is a distortion of reality and a matter of preference. I can not complain as I have my own preferences but IMHO that is going a step or two too far. 

@clearthinker , IMHO air bearing arms are a terrible way of going about tangential tracking. If this is important to you get a Schroder LT. No compressor or air current around the arm, Similar vertical and horizontal effective masses, much less change in VTA with record thickness and much better looking. Simplicity is always best and in this regard your arm is a nightmare.

Tapping the turntable's side is just a way of inciting the cartridges horizontal resonance. A lot of other things that do not involve action by you will incite it also. In the case of your arm that resonance is either too low or the vertical resonance is too high. This is a terrible thing to do to a cartridge as their vertical compliance is usually lower than their horizontal compliance. IMHO you should ditch the York and get a Schroder LT. It is not a total loss. You can mount the York on the wall and everyone will think it is some type of modern art :-)

@rauliruegas , you would never buy a VPI because like me you do not care for unipivot bearings.

There absolutely is a correct amount of antiskating even if the skating force is variable which it is, within a range and is mostly dependant on groove modulation and the shape of the stylus. You can see this easily if you watch the cantilever deflect. The goal is to set the antiskating so that the cantilever remains straight across the record which you can do and it works reliably if you have a good eye. As measured with the Wallyskater with the Lyra Atlas this turns out to be 11% or 0.11 times the VTF other suggestions are wrong to one degree or another. This will change slightly with stylus shape between 9 and 11%. 

I have a human brain like everyone else and are just as subject to psychological deviation as anyone. The only difference is I realize this is at play and take measures to neutralize it as much as is possible. Many of us here deny this is a factor. "Trust your ears." My ears or anyone's ears are the last things you want to trust. I really mean this. After all the theory and set up enjoy the fruits of your labor with your ears knowing you have done the best job you are capable of, to minimize distortions! Sound familiar? 

I have tested every cartridge I own to a patently ridiculous degree. I even built my own horizontal video microscope to make some of these observations. You can see it here https://imgur.com/a/9VcylFy  This is the set up for looking at stylus wear. The scope can be used adjacent to the turntable to view VTA and overhang. Those with a scientific background might recognize the staging mechanism of a medical microscope. 

@clearthinker , you know that was tongue in cheek and you and I agree on many things just not air bearing arms. 

Of course you do not need an antiskating device, not that your arm doesn't skate, it does, with air currents in the room, with changes in level, with different weight records, tension on the wires etc. It is impossible to predict. Much of this holds for any straight line tracker including the Schroder. Does any of this effect the sound? Probably not audibly. It is all theoretical in regards to sound quality. IMHO it all adds up when regarding the entire system. Simplicity is alway best, less is more. I regard Air bearing arms like I do ultrasonic record cleaning, like unnecessary complication and diversions. But, that is me and I am responsible only for myself and perhaps the systems that I help to set up. Here we share ideas even if they might be unpopular to some. Political correctness is only a way to prevent solving problems. Anyone can attack my feelings any time they want. They are already numb from years of self incrimination.  

@lewm , my home made tool did not work well in the end. I could not get reliable readings out of it. I opted for a Wallyskater as the most reliable way to get into the AS ballpark and have found by all accounts 9-11% is correct. Three methods actually agree with each other. The least reliably accurate is the Frank Schroder/ Peter Ledermann slow fade to the inside in the runout groove area. Next is the Jonathan Carr cantilever observation method which when used with magnification is surprisingly accurate and finally the Wallyskater which will give you a perfectly straight cantilever everytime without any dependency on observational astuteness.  

@rauliruegas , The skating force exists within a range dependant most on VTF. It is never close to zero and never beyond a certain degree. It is getting within the middle of that range which is important. When severely off as with no AS at all record wear on the left channel and that side of the stylus is greatly increased, the cantilever can be permanently deflected to the opposite side and mistraking occurs early in the right channel. You can demonstrate this with almost any test record. My friend's Spectral cartridge had the cantilever permanently bent to the left side by chronically too much AS and this will lead to early mistracking in the left channel again easy to demonstrate and accelerated wear on the right channel groove wall.  Other than mistracking whether or not you can hear any of this is a question I can not answer. My own inclination is that if you are listening to the right characteristics, you can. Before mistracking and increased wear occur cantilever deflection causes asymmetry in the alignment of the coils in the magnetic gap. If the magnetic structure was designed properly the field intensity should remain the same anywhere within the gap but the field lines will change. As a psychological issue I am happiest when symmetry is maintained. When I am happy my system, which is currently in shambles, sounds better. 

@clearthinker , ahmen.

The US is much younger than Europe and our immaturity frequently sends us into these unpredictable spasms like the 18th amendment. We'll come around, but the sane minds that will have to prevent WW 3 will be European. As the musical prophet Eric Dolphy would say, at this moment we are "Out to Lunch." 

@rauliruegas , And that is why Howard Johnson's made 28 flavors. 

At this moment I am integrating my new MA 2 amplifiers into the system and it has been anything but smooth sailing. I have a circuit breaker that keeps tripping. It can't handle the load. I will have to upgrade that line. And I just learned that I can not interrupt the power to the JC 1s or they will not trigger. They will require a whole new line. Antiskating is the least of my worries. On the bright side before the breaker trips things are sounding remarkably good and I have not gotten around to fine tuning the system yet. The JC 1s thunder on the subwoofers. With a damping factor of 2000 they toss those cones all over the place with utter abandon. 

Have a drink and look at those cantilevers again. 

@rauliruegas I will always have a long way to go because I enjoy doing it. I spent yesterday rewiring the basement amplifier shelf with a new 20 amp service for the MA 2s. I also had to rework the trigger system. Atmasphere designed and equipped my amps with a special trigger. When presented with a 12 volt trigger (the industry standard) the amp's filaments light up first then about a minute later the B+ is triggered and the amps go operational. He did not charge me a cent for it! I hope he gets to sell it to other people as an option. Because my amps are under the speakers in the basement I could not live without a trigger system. Perhaps I am the guinea pig. I am totally fine with that. 

I am not at all sure about the tweeters yet. I have to see how the new amps do.

Thanx for the compliment. I do not think the subwoofers are high resolution...yet. They will be if I don't die first. 

@fusian  Nonsense! I have three beers everyday:-)