almarg in checking the anti-skate (AQ PT-6) my understanding may be off but I thought you adjusted it to where the tone arm moved backwards then adjusted back toward no forward or backward movement? At present it is set at .5 so that raising and lowering it doesn’t move in or out.
First, I took a look at the manual for the AQ PT-6 tonearm, at vinylengine.com, and if I understand your response correctly you are **correctly** ignoring the instructions it provides about setting anti-skating. It states that the anti-skating dial should be set to the same number as the VTF dial, which is a statement I’ve seen in the instructions for a number of tonearms in the past but which results in a ridiculously excessive amount of anti-skating force IMO.
In any event, following is the procedure I use and recommend for setting anti-skating, at least in the case of cartridges having medium to high compliance. (I don’t have significant experience with low compliance cartridges, and this procedure may be less useful in those cases since cantilever deflection will probably have less sensitivity to variation of anti-skating force):
1)Observe the cartridge from the front while it is in the groove of a low volume passage of a rotating record, and positioned somewhere in the middle of the record.
2)Adjust anti-skating until deflection of the cantilever to one side (left or right) becomes barely perceptible, relative to its position when the stylus is lifted off of the record. Note the setting.
3)Adjust anti-skating until deflection of the cantilever to the other side (left or right) becomes barely perceptible, relative to its position when the stylus is lifted off of the record. Note the setting.
4)Set anti-skating to the mid-point between those settings.
5)Verify that no perceptible left or right deflection of the cantilever occurs near the beginning and near the end of the record.
Good luck. Regards,
-- Al
