[ARSCLIST] Antiskate important (was Mostly for laughs)

[Eric Jacobs <ericj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Antiskate is certainly critical when you are dealing with discs with
certain types of groove damage.  Without antiskate, you'll get stylus
skipping of grooves - whether you use a pivoted or linear tracking
tonearm.  With some diagonal scratches, it helps to use less antiskate 
to prevent repeating of grooves.  Sometimes negative antiskate would 
be useful - but no such pivoted tonearm that I'm aware of has this 
feature.

The SME 309, 312, iV and V tonearms have antiskate that can be adjusted 
easily while the disc is playing, making them useful for restoration 
work on damaged discs.  We use both pivoted and linear tonearms for
maximum flexibility.

The amount of antiskate required increases with non-orthogonal forces 
to the stylus.  In the case of pivoted tonearms, this means more 
antiskate is needed with coarser grooves, increased VTF (Vertical 
Tracking Force), and more RPM.

In addition to antiskate, lateral damping can help track damaged 
discs.  Viscous damping troughs are useful in this way for both 
pivotal and linear tracking arms.


Eric Jacobs
General Manager

The Audio Archive
tel: 408.221.2128
fax: 408.549.9867
mailto:EricJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



On 25/10/06, doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> 
> 
> And almost every arm has some kind of mechanism such as a thread, weight
> and pulley to make the pressure equal on both walls of the groove.
> 
> As you say, it is not all that critical.
> 
> Regards
> -- 
> Don Cox
> doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx