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Welcome Licorice Pizza (LP) lovers! Setup guides and Vinyl FAQ.

RE: Structural dynamicist geek-Bear's take

I can't help but wonder what it might mean to have a "free and honest tonearm." During play there are inherent in any LP/arm/cartridge assembly a whole host of dynamic behaviors- they're all damped to varying degrees by the effects of the vinyl's inherent damping, the stylus' cantilever mounting system, cartridge electrodynamic damping, losses in the arm bearings and wiring, etc etc etc. I understand your metafora and it's a lovely notion, but nothing breathes freely except opera singers I'm afraid.

SONICS: Just one Bear's opinion, but in numerous turntables passing through my hands I have found very small audible differences with varying the A/S. On my old favorite Denon DA-401 arm I found that I had inadvertently disengaged the magnetic-controlled A/S for almost a year, and so had been listening to my Dynavector XX without A/S that long! The horror!! Bearette and I found no diminution of the listening experience in that time whatsoever.

WEAR: Read the article below. It is in part based on the concept that the velocity of the stylus within the groove varies by a factor of almost 4x from he start to finish of a 12" LP, so any statically-generated A/S is almost always in error anyway. Smith's claim is that: "Usually, most folks use far too much antiskating, as evidenced by the thousands of cartridges I have rebuilt over the last 40+ years - as evidenced [sic.] by observation of the outer edge (right channel) of the diamond to be worn far more than the inner, or left channel." Too much A/S is the diagnosis from a genuine expert!

This is probably very good advice. It jibes with my experience that if you have doubts, leave the A/S off entirely. A fine grain-oriented natural diamond should last 1000+ hours = 2500 LP sides or so and very slight, uneven stylus wear might be negligible in the real world.

My experience has led me to be somewhat blasé about setting the A/S; I just turn the dial or whatever to the manufacturer's recommended number of grams (usually = VTF) and then back it down maybe 25%. At the end of the day, I have to go with the original word from Saint Harry (Weisfeld) and said years ago that A/S is not a big deal and left it off his tonearms entirely.

That said, do consider his caution to make sure your tonearm wiring isn't twisting the arm, which should be readily apparent.





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