Vinyl Asylum: RE: SRA thread caused me some unwarranted paranoia by Retipper

Here was my response to kavakidd:

Thank you for your inquiry;

What you are looking at is our OC-CL diamond, which DOES "look" to have a VERY steep rake angle; it is an optical illusion. The manner in which the diamond itself is cut allows the rake angle to be about the 2 degrees it need to be, while a causal look would make it appear to be about 25 degrees.

(concerning sibilance and performance)

The problem/challenge with an advanced stylus design is that if it is not aligned properly, it will perform poorly under certain circumstances. A Ferrari with unbalanced tires will not give you a good ride. So...

If you have not paid strict attention to azimuth, that is terribly critical with any advanced diamond. I strongly URGE you to use the following alignment procedure, outlined below. Do, however, bear in mind that sibilance can be caused my many factors, some included here:

1) A 'cut' record - one that has been played even once with a badly worn or badly misaligned stylus
2) An improperly aligned cartridge
3) Improper coupling between the cartridge and tone arm, resulting in poorly damped energy from the cartridge by the tone arm, and reflections as a result. This happens VERY OFTEN - (try mounting the cartridge with some special material between the cart and tone arm headshell; Scotch makes clear double sided stick squares called 'clear removable Mounting Squares' product 859, that works extremely well for this problem -- nylon mounting screws work well with this too -- see MSC company)
4) A badly recorded record with too high a velocity to track (in specific places)
5) A bad pressing

(and many more causes)

ANTI-SKATING (Frank Schroder's method - disclaimer - he is a good friend)

When you have it adjusted right, the arm will track slowly INWARDS on the SURFACE of the record (not in the groove) at ALMOST the same rate AS IF IT WERE in the end - run out groove.

The easiest (and only) place to test this is near the very end of the record in the 'run-out' groove area. It will take some patience, and good timing, but you will find that with practice, you will be able to CUE the arm down on the surface for a few seconds before it falls into the groove. If the anti-skating is correct, the arm will act almost as if it is in the run-out groove. If the arm tracks slowly in while on the surface, a bit slower than it would if it were in the run-out groove, then the Anti-Skating is set correctly

(to a reasonable extent, that will set it at an approximately good level - according to Frank, while the force per unit area is far diferrent for a stylus on the top surface of a record compared with one in the groove, the total stiction is about the same. However, there is a bit more stiction with it on the surface....that's why the above adjustment requests a slow moving in, as opposed to a slow moving outwards, which would otherwise stand to reason....note here that Frank is far smarter than I am!)

Also, this can help to verify the anti-skating is not grossly out of range; - with medium and especially with high compliance cartridges - LOOK at the position of the cantilever when it is up in the air, and when it is on the record, both at the beginning, and at the end of the record. Look for a change in position both initially upon set-down, as well as after 1-2 minutes. DO THIS BEFORE and after the above adjustment (to see the effect) - when adjusted correctly, the cantilever should not change position - if it does, the Anti-Skating is very wrong !!

AZIMUTH - VERY VERY critical for the OC-CL Soundsmith stylus

Set the azimuth as follows: listen (or measure) with a test record with tracks that have sound on one channel only, and listen to the OTHER, non-modulated channel ONLY for "cross-talk" or bleed over. Do the same thing for the OTHER channel. When you get the azimuth correct, the amount of bleed over to each channel that does not have sound recorded on it will be equal - the same amount for both channels. That is close to the best azimuth. It is something that some folks don't pay enough attention to, but it is more critical for optimizing performance than VTA. The higher performance the styli used, the profoundly more critical this is.

Obviously, overhang, VTF and all other parameters must be done correctly as well.

Peter Ledermann/Soundsmith