Hi.
(1) Peter Ledermann from Soundsmith was at VPI 2 weekends ago giving a seminar, of sorts. His take on anti-skate (his words, not mine, and also spoken in the presence of VPI) was that anyone who says anti-skate isn't necessary doesn't know what they are talking about.
(2) That being said, it is also near impossible to set it correctly across the entire side of a record, because it keeps changing. But without it you will get uneven pressure on one side of the stylus tip, wearing both the stylus and the record grooves.
(3)His method was to use the "blank" record trick. The arm should move ever so slightly in toward the center. That is a reasonable approximate setting per Peter.
(1) 100% agreed. As I posted earlier here, this is physics. Anti-skating force in NEEDED to offset
the centripetal force which keep a object moving a certain uniform speed along a curved path.
Same applies to a cartridge/stylus tracking a LP.
(2) Yes, otherwise the inner side of the record grooves will be worn out due to the centripetal force
caused by the moving stylus. No jokes.
(3) Yes, I agreed 100%. I used a blank vinyl disc to simulate the hardness & surface friction of our
vinyl LPs. By adjusted to the right AS force of the dial scale (disregarding what is shown on the
dial scale), I can have the tonearm set
stationary tracking at difference positions
across the entire disc from 1/3 from the outer rim to the innermost possible tracking area.
Given a thicker & well done blank disc instead of my DIYed experimenting disc being much thinner the standard thickness of an LP, the result I would consider pretty promising. If I rebuilt a blank vinyl disc of the same thickness & mass & stiffness of a LP, I believe my tonearm could track
stationary at any position across the blank disc with the proper AS setting.
I've noted the AS reading as set by such blank disc tracking is a bit higher than the setting as recommended by the TT SA dial scale.
c-J
