Hi All,
OK, I’m going to open up a can of worms here…………………
Most turntables have an anti-skate adjustment. Some do not & some have a
counterweight suspended from a thread (which, is surprisingly accurate).
I learned years ago that the anti-skate (A-S) adjustment should be 9 to
11 % of the vertical tracking force (VTF).
Once the turntable is set up & with everything properly adjusted, my
method has been to adjust the A-S by playing a blank disc (usually a
lacquer) & set the A-S so that the tonearm tracks steadily in the middle
of the disc. A slight drift towards the center is desirable but
generally difficult to achieve. When digital recording became the norm,
I began visually & audibly checking the fades for all of the material
being transferred from disc to make sure the modulation is equal (unless
it is intended otherwise). When I purchased my 1^st set of AES Coarse
Groove Calibration discs, (AES-S001-064) I was pleasantly surprised to
find a generous band of no modulation in the center of the discs
although there is no mention that it is to be used for A-S adjustment.
I recently read that an easy way to adjust A-S is to adjust it so that
the tone arm stays steady in the dead wax area of the record to be
played. I tried this & found that when the tone arm is placed in the
center of a blank disc, the tone arm travels to the outside of the disc.
So, what’s the correct adjustment? I thought I’d ask the experts on this
forum: How do you adjust anti-skate? Do you use sophisticated
measurement tools? Comments? Opinions?
Happy Holidays,
CB
Corey Bailey Audio Engineering
www.baileyzone.net
|