[Chris Hornbeck]

On Wed, 30 Aug 2006 01:50:27 -0400, "Mark Oppat"
wrote:

so basically you guys are saying increase the tracking force. OK, will do.
But, why does the anti-skate control not affect the amount of force I see
and feel pulling the arm outwards? Should not the arm stand still when
balanced and the A-S is set to zero as well?

Instead, it flys to the outer edge (remember, the arm is balancing in air
above the platter for this test). If I set the A-S to max, it still has the
same force.

Excellent point and perfectly expressed. I can only hope
to respond less convincingly, but maybe usefully.

We're really just too big to be able to feel the difference
between 1/4 and 1/2 gram of force. It's tough enough to
measure ((although you can do it with homemade gear, deflected
small springs calibrated by known weights (known by measuring
their dimensions and working from published densities) ))
but it's outside our realm of personal experience.

EVERYTHING about playing (or worse, recording) vinyl records
is outside our ordinary world experience. In playback, contact
pressures are in the tons per square inch. Temperatures in
the vinyl face rise, or a very brief time, to 700 to 900 F.
Deformations, liquifications, and solidifications, Oh My!

If the tonearm's tracking force is zero'd, pretty much any
(much smaller) bias force will cause it to move pretty much
the same to our eyeball perception. If in doubt, measure.


My very strong recommendation, if you want to use this for
playing valued records, is to buy the best stylus you can.

And, anything over about two grams with point-contact face
geometry exceeds the Young's modulus, where plastic deformation
ain't so plastic.

But that's just me. All good fortune,

Chris Hornbeck
"History consists of truths which in the end turn into lies,
while myth consists of lies which finally turn into truths."
- Jean Cocteau