Tone arm antiskate

[paulf-2007]

After all these years I still don't understand why the antiskate pulls the arm towards the outer edge of the groove. Common sense tells me the arm follows the groove by being pushed by the outer groove edge and that to get the stylus to pick up both edges of the groove equally the bias would pull the arm towards the inner edge of the groove. But no I guess it holds the stylus back so it doesn't jump out of the groove and skate. Funny my diy unipivots never mistrack and have no antiskate mechanism.

[walpurgis]

If you lower the stylus onto a grooveless blank record, the arm will swing inwards. The antiskating force counteracts this pull, which exists even when the stylus is in a groove.

[struth]

As above ... when arm is in floating position you use anti skate weight to stop it going toward centre by pulling toward the outer rim in equal force. It is often a similar figure to the downforce weight applied.

[Barry]

The frictional force between the stylus and the groove walls is turned into a clockwise rotational torque at the horizontal arm pivot, because the stylus is offset in angle with respect to a line between the stylus and the arm pivot.

An anticlockwise counter torque is thus required, and this is what the antiskate bias does.

[Stewie Griffin]

Also ensures that you maintain good channel balance, Less distortion & ofc Record wear is a priority

[paulf-2007]

Ah yes, my memory is shot, just thinking with the stylus guard on indeed the arm heads for the center of the record, at one time I used to adjust anti skate like this until the arm stayed put. Obviously wrong but then using a test record I set up a 1210 and sound wise it was nowhere near as good as my unipivot with no antiskate on it. Having a blonde moment tonight.