[earwicker7]

Hey, all. I'm setting up my Grado Statement with the Adjust+ software. This is an absolutely amazing program that I highly recommend; I can't imagine having to go back to setting azimuth by sight or with a voltmeter. The problem is that one thing the manufacturer says rings wrong... he says that when checking azimuth you should have the anti-skate on; I had always thought that anti-skate should be the last part of your setup and turned off until the end.

Can anyone comment on this?

 

[tubes]

Engaging the anti-skate for a unipivot arm may make a difference, a gimbal bearing arm is fixed so I don't see that it would have an affect. Then again, you may get skewed results without the anti-skate engaged as you don't want the stylus riding on one wall of the groove more than the other. Just my 2 cents.

Phill

 

[nikongod]

The absence of anti-skate when you need it can cause the arm to read one wall of the groove better than the other. this can be interpreted as a skewed azimuth.

For initial setting of VTF I would disable anti-skate, otherwise I would have it on.

Think of it this way:
when dialing in a cartridge/tonearm system you are making all of these adjustments to VTA, VTF, and azimuth which get closer and closer to the "target" as you adjust them, but adjusting one "changes" the other. With enough decreasingly smaller adjustments one can get close enough to the target. After you finish getting these 3 things set you make a HUGE change to a thus-far ignored parameter at the end and hope it dosnt screw up all the other adjustments.... seems kind of weird, wouldn't you say?

I suppose some carts may be less sensitive to this than others, and it will certainly matter where on the disc the "azimuth" test tracks are, but you can always test if there is a difference by running the test with anti-skate off and then with it on: if there is no reason to have it on the results should be the same.

 

[earwicker7]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nikongod /img/forum/go_quote.gif The absence of anti-skate when you need it can cause the arm to read one wall of the groove better than the other. this can be interpreted as a skewed azimuth. For initial setting of VTF I would disable anti-skate, otherwise I would have it on. Think of it this way: when dialing in a cartridge/tonearm system you are making all of these adjustments to VTA, VTF, and azimuth which get closer and closer to the "target" as you adjust them, but adjusting one "changes" the other. With enough decreasingly smaller adjustments one can get close enough to the target. After you finish getting these 3 things set you make a HUGE change to a thus-far ignored parameter at the end and hope it dosnt screw up all the other adjustments.... seems kind of weird, wouldn't you say? I suppose some carts may be less sensitive to this than others, and it will certainly matter where on the disc the "azimuth" test tracks are, but you can always test if there is a difference by running the test with anti-skate off and then with it on: if there is no reason to have it on the results should be the same.

Good point about it being a huge change!

One question... won't anti-skating make it hard to keep the stylus in place on the protractor? Both of the protractors I have specifically say to turn off anti-skate.

I'll definitely do what you suggested on trying the program with and without anti-skating. I've got a feeling that you're right and it will make a big difference.

 

[nikongod]

Quote:

Originally Posted by earwicker7 /img/forum/go_quote.gif One question... won't anti-skating make it hard to keep the stylus in place on the protractor? Both of the protractors I have specifically say to turn off anti-skate.

I have had that problem with one of my protractors on a mirror.

I would do the initial setup using the protractor without anti skate and then enable it for the fine tuning steps.