This is my own turntable I've just gotten
out of the closet. I'd like to listen to some of my 70's records. The
unit I'm working on is an old Thorens TD160 turntable with an Stanton
gold body 500 cartridge. The cartridge is equipped with the elliptical stylus
designed to track at between 1 and 2 grams. I'm presently tracking at
1.25 grams without any apparent problems.

I would like to set this up as accurately as possible. I'm hoping that
someone can advise me on this. The manual I have is for a
slightly different unit with a newer tone arm, and all it mentions
about anti skate is to set it just slightly lower than your tracking
weight. It seems to run fine what ever anti skate is set to and
although I've made that adjustment to just over 1, I would like
to be a bit more precise than that if possible.

I thought I recall (way back when) that there was a procedure whereby
you leveled the unit, and then you played this "record" without
grooves. If the stylus remained in one spot without drifting then your
anti skate was correct. If it drifted, then a slight adjustment on the
anti skate was in order. I don't have any such "record" and I can't
think of a way to do something like that without damaging the stylus.
I was wondering if anyone had any further information pertaining to
this procedure? Thanks, Lenny

I would like to set this up as accurately as possible. I'm hoping that
someone can advise me on this. The manual I have is for a
slightly different unit with a newer tone arm, and all it mentions
about anti skate is to set it just slightly lower than your tracking
weight. It seems to run fine what ever anti skate is set to and
although I've made that adjustment to just over 1, I would like
to be a bit more precise than that if possible.

I thought I recall (way back when) that there was a procedure whereby
you leveled the unit, and then you played this "record" without
grooves. If the stylus remained in one spot without drifting then your
anti skate was correct. If it drifted, then a slight adjustment on the
anti skate was in order. I don't have any such "record" and I can't
think of a way to do something like that without damaging the stylus.
I was wondering if anyone had any further information pertaining to
this procedure? Thanks, Lenny

I think I do recall reading about that procedure. Even it is somewhat
approximate, though.

If I remember correctly... the antiskating mechanism is providing a
sideways force, which is intended to counteract force which attempts
to cause the cartridge to skate inwards. This compensation helps the
stylus track the groove with equal pressure on both groove walls, so
that neither channel will start mis-tracking (stylus bounces away from
the groove wall) prematurely during loud passages.

The inwards force appears as a result of friction between the stylus
and the groove. This friction generates a force which is along the
axis of the cartridge (perpendicular to the contact line between the
stylus and the groove), and because the cartridge is mounted at an
offset angle (its axis does not point straight back at the tonearm
pivot) part of the friction force acts to pull the cartridge inwards.

The actual amount of skating force generated, depends on the amount of
friction "pull" between the stylus and the groove. This, then,
depends on the stylus tracking force (downwards pressure), the shape
of the stylus and thus its contact area with the groove (conical,
elliptical, line-contact), the speed with which the vinyl is passing
under the stylus (faster at the outer edge), and the amount of groove
modulation (louder passages - more friction).

So... the "correct" setting of the antiskate adjustment is always
going to be a compromise. Some antiskate systems generate a constant
sideways force at any given settings (e.g. those which use a simple
weight-and-thread mechanism). Others may vary the actual sideways
pressure as the record plays, to compensate for the vinyl-to-stylus
speed variations (e.g. those which use magnets, or play interesting
geometric games in their mechanical contact to the arm).

Setting the anti-skate using a "blank" vinyl disc is certainly one
possibility. I don't know whether a disc of other material (e.g. a
plate of glass) would have the right amount of friction. A disc
without grooves would have a very different vinyl-to-stylus contact
shape, though, and might generate a different amount of skating force
than a real record would.

Another approach I've seen uses a specialized test record, which has
highly-modulated (loud) grooves using a single sine-wave tone. You
play the record at several positions (inner and outer grooves), look
at the left and right channel waveforms using an oscilloscope, and
adjust the antiskating force so that mis-tracking starts to occur in
both channels at the same time.

Unless you really want to get into laboratory-grade fiddling around of
this sort, though, I suspect that what you've been doing is probably
right in practice... set the anti-skating adjustment to a value
corresponding to your stylus tracking pressure, on the reasonable
assumption that the turntable manufacturer calibrated the adjustment
in this way (it's a very common technique).

Set it up this way, after you've set the tracking force correctly
(mid-way through its recommended range, or perhaps a bit
higher... using the low-end of the range is often not a good idea as
it can result in premature mistracking) and you'll probably be in the
"sweet spot".

wrote in message ...

I thought I recall (way back when) that there was a procedure whereby
you leveled the unit, and then you played this "record" without
grooves. If the stylus remained in one spot without drifting then your
anti skate was correct. If it drifted, then a slight adjustment on the
anti skate was in order.

This is a good starting point, but the antiskate won't be high enough. There
is less friction when the stylus contacts a flat surface, rather than the
groove walls.

Stereo Review had a test record with an overmodulated groove. The left and
right channel differed by three Hz (I believe) -- 300 Hz and 303 Hz. This
caused the lateral and vertical modulations to go in and out of phase three
times a second. You simply adjusted the anti-skating until the distortion was
the same on both channels.

That's the way I remember it, anyhow.

There's another way to do it, which I'd forgotten.

While the pickup is playing a modulated groove, look at the pickup from its
front. When the anti-skating is correct, the pickup will be centered over the
groove.

On Tue, 26 Nov 2013 10:59:47 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

This is my own turntable I've just gotten
out of the closet. I'd like to listen to some of my 70's records. The
unit I'm working on is an old Thorens TD160 turntable with an Stanton
gold body 500 cartridge. The cartridge is equipped with the elliptical stylus
designed to track at between 1 and 2 grams. I'm presently tracking at
1.25 grams without any apparent problems.

I would like to set this up as accurately as possible. I'm hoping that
someone can advise me on this. The manual I have is for a
slightly different unit with a newer tone arm, and all it mentions
about anti skate is to set it just slightly lower than your tracking
weight. It seems to run fine what ever anti skate is set to and
although I've made that adjustment to just over 1, I would like
to be a bit more precise than that if possible.

I thought I recall (way back when) that there was a procedure whereby
you leveled the unit, and then you played this "record" without
grooves. If the stylus remained in one spot without drifting then your
anti skate was correct. If it drifted, then a slight adjustment on the
anti skate was in order. I don't have any such "record" and I can't
think of a way to do something like that without damaging the stylus.
I was wondering if anyone had any further information pertaining to
this procedure? Thanks, Lenny
Good luck with the adjustments. Though I can't contribute anything
useful to your post I can say that about the only good thing from the
70's was some of the music. For example, Swiss Movement. Though
recorded in '69 I first heard Les McCann and Eddie Harris in the early
70's. Compared To What, Cold Duck Time, and without Les McCann Listen
Here.There was good music from Pink Floyd too. Oh, and Jeff Beck's
album Blow By Blow. I especially like the cuts She's A Woman, You Know
What I Mean, and Freeway Jam. I always play Freeway Jam when I start
out on a long road trip. I recently played She's A Woman for my 34
year old son. Just because it was next in the queue when I wanted him
to listen to the sound system in my car. He remarked after it was over
"Who was that? Is it new? That was great! Excellent guitar work!". He
was surprised it was older than him.
Eric

In article ,
"William Sommerwerck" wrote:

There's another way to do it, which I'd forgotten.

While the pickup is playing a modulated groove, look at the pickup from its
front. When the anti-skating is correct, the pickup will be centered over the
groove.

More correctly, it will be at the same place it is when the needle is
held up in the air (not all styli -- especially old ones -- will be
perfectly centered).

Isaac

On Tuesday, November 26, 2013 1:59:47 PM UTC-5, wrote:
This is my own turntable I've just gotten

out of the closet. I'd like to listen to some of my 70's records. The

unit I'm working on is an old Thorens TD160 turntable with an Stanton

gold body 500 cartridge. The cartridge is equipped with the elliptical stylus

designed to track at between 1 and 2 grams. I'm presently tracking at

1.25 grams without any apparent problems.



I would like to set this up as accurately as possible. I'm hoping that

someone can advise me on this. The manual I have is for a

slightly different unit with a newer tone arm, and all it mentions

about anti skate is to set it just slightly lower than your tracking

weight. It seems to run fine what ever anti skate is set to and

although I've made that adjustment to just over 1, I would like

to be a bit more precise than that if possible.



I thought I recall (way back when) that there was a procedure whereby

you leveled the unit, and then you played this "record" without

grooves. If the stylus remained in one spot without drifting then your

anti skate was correct. If it drifted, then a slight adjustment on the

anti skate was in order. I don't have any such "record" and I can't

think of a way to do something like that without damaging the stylus.

I was wondering if anyone had any further information pertaining to

this procedure? Thanks, Lenny

I saw Britt Floyd in Boston last Spring. If you've never seen them you should. They were incredible. The Wall, they made Pink Floyd sound like the tribute band. Lenny

On Tuesday, November 26, 2013 2:37:34 PM UTC-5, William Sommerwerck wrote:
There's another way to do it, which I'd forgotten. While the pickup is playing a modulated groove, look at the pickup from its front. When the anti-skating is correct, the pickup will be centered over the groove.

THAT is the really right way usually. I lik the distortion method but there should be no distortion, at least visible.

Personally, if I own the LPs I track it very high. Very high, but it is only for transcription purposes. I play it once. Well I might have to do once to get the level right. I havd a 0.002 X 0.007 hyperelyptical I tracked at about twoo and a half for thisd purpose.

Sue me. I wanted i once, for this time only and recorded it in the highest format the PC would do, and then burnt it to disk. Want to hear it ? I cvan arrainge that. it is a Cristmas album. From about 1968, it has close to the best quality sound i have ever heard on an LP to this day, and that includes half speed masters and ****.

I used an Audio Technica At 13Ea for this on a relatively cheap turntable, a Marantx 6120. I lost my Dual in the fire and never replaced it. Anyuway, I cranked the tracking force, I want this clean THIS ONE TIME.

Give it trackng force until it cannot take anymore, and then adjust the antiskate to where the stylus is in the middle. You MIGHT have to adjust this for different tracks on the LP.

Another thing is to realize the actual angle the cartridge must be placed. It is not always what the manufacuturer says. A Thorens probably will set up right using the factory instructions, but then is it what YOU want ?

if you are going to use this for transcription, you could concievably adjust the antiskate for each track.

the oproblem here is the lack of REALLY good linear tracking turntabtles. The record were CUT with a linear tracker, what stands to reason here ? The problem is that by the time they started builing them, much of the quality i s gone. If you got a couple of grand for the really good stuff you can get like thatl you would not be asking about this.

For transcription, I know this sounds so hillbilly, but stick a dime on it and two VHS tapes on the left side to prop it up.

In fact, I forgot that I had already put up the file, here it is :

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...6/UNTITLED.WAV

I think it sounds pretty damn good.

Yeah I know, got a buzz on, can't see wortyh a **** and......

wrote:

This is my own turntable I've just gotten
out of the closet. I'd like to listen to some of my 70's records. The
unit I'm working on is an old Thorens TD160 turntable with an Stanton
gold body 500 cartridge. The cartridge is equipped with the elliptical stylus
designed to track at between 1 and 2 grams. I'm presently tracking at
1.25 grams without any apparent problems.

I would like to set this up as accurately as possible. I'm hoping that
someone can advise me on this. ...

This won't be much help to you with your particular problem of the
moment, but if you want accurate reproduction, parallel tracking is the
right way to do it.

With a radial arm, the spurious side forces due to friction are the
least of your worries. There is a constant variation between the angle
of the cartridge and the angle at which the groove was cut. In stereo
this results in time displacement of the two channels and in mono it
results in comb-filtering at high frequencies.

I didn't believe there was much improvement to be gained by using
parallel tracking until I was persuaded to try it - the results were
worth all the time invested. Fiddling about trying to optimise the
geometry of a radial arm is just 'polishing a turd' by comparison.

--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

"This won't be much help to you with your particular problem of the
moment,..."

This is S.E.R. which means out of fifty responses about two of them hit the spot. How many S.E.rers does it take to answer a question ? The number has never been determined.

You are absolutely right about the linear tracking, though realize it is not perfect either. Nothing is friction free enough so therefore there is a motor and an optical pickup that tells the little motor when to turn. It jogs along as the record plays which thus means there is tracking error oscillating between negative and positive angle to the groove. It is still a hell of alot better.

Among the worse of ideas was the aesthetically attractive yet a practical nightmare known as the S shaped arm. First of all the thing has more mass. The best arm is a straight line because it will have the lowest mass. Another thing about those Ttables is that most of them set the cartridge wrong anyway.

They generally tried to set the geometry so that tracking was perfect at two point of the radius. they made a mistake thogh because they set the second point too far from the innermost grooves. That is where it is the most critical. That is where this non-tangental angle HURTS the most and causes the worst groove wear.

I had a couple with the S shaped arm and once I set it up as I saw fit, it looked like the cartridge was in cockeyed, but the thing played well. I mean really well. I didn't get that muddy sound toward the end of a side.

I played ALOT of vinyl in the day. Funny now I would only consider it for transcribing to digital.

One of my favorite Ttables ws the Dual 1229. First of all you could set the thing right on top of a speaker and it wouldn't get much feedback. Secondly, not only did the thing not have to be level, it would play standing up on its side. I **** you not. the arm is balaced in all axes and the tracking force and antiskate were applied by calibrated springs. If you are going to have a conventional arm, that's the way to do it.

And of course make it as long as possible.

On Tue, 26 Nov 2013 10:59:47 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

This is my own turntable I've just gotten
out of the closet. I'd like to listen to some of my 70's records. The
unit I'm working on is an old Thorens TD160 turntable with an Stanton
gold body 500 cartridge. The cartridge is equipped with the elliptical stylus
designed to track at between 1 and 2 grams. I'm presently tracking at
1.25 grams without any apparent problems.

I would like to set this up as accurately as possible. I'm hoping that
someone can advise me on this. The manual I have is for a
slightly different unit with a newer tone arm, and all it mentions
about anti skate is to set it just slightly lower than your tracking
weight. It seems to run fine what ever anti skate is set to and
although I've made that adjustment to just over 1, I would like
to be a bit more precise than that if possible.

I thought I recall (way back when) that there was a procedure whereby
you leveled the unit, and then you played this "record" without
grooves. If the stylus remained in one spot without drifting then your
anti skate was correct. If it drifted, then a slight adjustment on the
anti skate was in order. I don't have any such "record" and I can't
think of a way to do something like that without damaging the stylus.
I was wondering if anyone had any further information pertaining to
this procedure? Thanks, Lenny


Lenny,

That is a very nice turntable but not a very good cartridge. I would
track it at at least 2 grams. Chuck

wrote:

"This won't be much help to you with your particular problem of the
moment,..."


You are absolutely right about the linear tracking, though realize it is
not perfect either. Nothing is friction free enough...

The un-servoed parallel tracker was of dubious value, even in the days
of coarse-grooved 78s.

... so therefore there
is a motor and an optical pickup that tells the little motor when to
turn. It jogs along as the record plays which thus means there is
tracking error oscillating between negative and positive angle to the
groove. It is still a hell of alot better.

If the servo is correctly designed, the error can be very small indeed -
probably smaller than the error in the original cutting facet.

The trick is to have a high loop gain with a very long time constant,
lurking in the background of an ordinary much faster loop with less
gain. Velocity-proportional feedback is also needed for damping the
loop. Finally, there needs to be an over-ride system which disables the
time constants and puts the motor on full power when the error exceeds a
certain range. Otherwise, when the user lifts the pickup to return it
to its stand, he will have to wait all day for the servo to catch up.

Not every disc was cut with a correctly-aligned cutter, so it is helpful
to have the cartridge on a swivel mounting if you intend doing archive
work; an X-Y scope on the two channels is the most accurate way of
aligning it.

Among the worse of ideas was the aesthetically attractive yet a
practical nightmare known as the S shaped arm. First of all the thing
has more mass. The best arm is a straight line because it will have the
lowest mass....

Also, there could be worse torsional resonances in an 'S'-shaped arm
than in a straight arm of similar construction.


And of course make it as long as possible.

If the arm is radial, that makes sense because it minimises the angular
changes; but there are advantages to a short arm, which can be exploited
if a parallel tracker is used with the carriage track running partly
above the turntable.


--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

On 27/11/2013 5:59 AM, wrote:
This is my own turntable I've just gotten
out of the closet. I'd like to listen to some of my 70's records. The
unit I'm working on is an old Thorens TD160 turntable with an Stanton
gold body 500 cartridge. The cartridge is equipped with the elliptical stylus
designed to track at between 1 and 2 grams. I'm presently tracking at
1.25 grams without any apparent problems.

I would like to set this up as accurately as possible. I'm hoping that
someone can advise me on this. The manual I have is for a
slightly different unit with a newer tone arm, and all it mentions
about anti skate is to set it just slightly lower than your tracking
weight. It seems to run fine what ever anti skate is set to and
although I've made that adjustment to just over 1, I would like
to be a bit more precise than that if possible.

I thought I recall (way back when) that there was a procedure whereby
you leveled the unit, and then you played this "record" without
grooves. If the stylus remained in one spot without drifting then your
anti skate was correct. If it drifted, then a slight adjustment on the
anti skate was in order. I don't have any such "record" and I can't
think of a way to do something like that without damaging the stylus.
I was wondering if anyone had any further information pertaining to
this procedure? Thanks, Lenny


**The Stanton 500 is a horrible cartridge. It was designed for
ham-fisted DJs, not hi fi reproduction. Get rid it it and use something
better (which means pretty much anything else). As for anti-sakting
adjustments, don't sweat it. Near enough is good enough. Follow the
directions from Thorens. You first step, however, is to GET RID OF THAT
HORRIBLE CARTRIDGE if you value you old recordings.

--
Trevor Wilson www.rageaudio.com.au

On 28/11/2013 7:10 AM, Trevor Wilson wrote:
On 27/11/2013 5:59 AM, wrote:
This is my own turntable I've just gotten
out of the closet. I'd like to listen to some of my 70's records. The
unit I'm working on is an old Thorens TD160 turntable with an Stanton
gold body 500 cartridge. The cartridge is equipped with the elliptical
stylus
designed to track at between 1 and 2 grams. I'm presently tracking at
1.25 grams without any apparent problems.

I would like to set this up as accurately as possible. I'm hoping that
someone can advise me on this. The manual I have is for a
slightly different unit with a newer tone arm, and all it mentions
about anti skate is to set it just slightly lower than your tracking
weight. It seems to run fine what ever anti skate is set to and
although I've made that adjustment to just over 1, I would like
to be a bit more precise than that if possible.

I thought I recall (way back when) that there was a procedure whereby
you leveled the unit, and then you played this "record" without
grooves. If the stylus remained in one spot without drifting then your
anti skate was correct. If it drifted, then a slight adjustment on the
anti skate was in order. I don't have any such "record" and I can't
think of a way to do something like that without damaging the stylus.
I was wondering if anyone had any further information pertaining to
this procedure? Thanks, Lenny


**The Stanton 500 is a horrible cartridge. It was designed for
ham-fisted DJs, not hi fi reproduction. Get rid it it and use something
better (which means pretty much anything else). As for anti-sakting
adjustments, don't sweat it. Near enough is good enough. Follow the
directions from Thorens. You first step, however, is to GET RID OF THAT
HORRIBLE CARTRIDGE if you value you old recordings.


**Oh yeah: If you do decide to begin destroying your old recordings, by
using the horrible Stanton 500, then you should NOT operate it at low
force settings. It should be used at AT LEAST 2 grammes. Check the
manufacturer's data on your cartridge. Operating a cartridge at too low
a force will cause more damage to the LP than too little.

--
Trevor Wilson www.rageaudio.com.au

In article ,
wrote:

"This won't be much help to you with your particular problem of the
moment,..."

This is S.E.R. which means out of fifty responses about two of them hit the
spot. How many S.E.rers does it take to answer a question ? The number has
never been determined.

You are absolutely right about the linear tracking, though realize it is not
perfect either. Nothing is friction free enough so therefore there is a motor
and an optical pickup that tells the little motor when to turn. It jogs along
as the record plays which thus means there is tracking error oscillating
between negative and positive angle to the groove. It is still a hell of alot
better.

Among the worse of ideas was the aesthetically attractive yet a practical
nightmare known as the S shaped arm. First of all the thing has more mass.
The best arm is a straight line because it will have the lowest mass. Another
thing about those Ttables is that most of them set the cartridge wrong
anyway.

They generally tried to set the geometry so that tracking was perfect at two
point of the radius. they made a mistake thogh because they set the second
point too far from the innermost grooves. That is where it is the most
critical. That is where this non-tangental angle HURTS the most and causes
the worst groove wear.

I had a couple with the S shaped arm and once I set it up as I saw fit, it
looked like the cartridge was in cockeyed, but the thing played well. I mean
really well. I didn't get that muddy sound toward the end of a side.

I played ALOT of vinyl in the day. Funny now I would only consider it for
transcribing to digital.

One of my favorite Ttables ws the Dual 1229. First of all you could set the
thing right on top of a speaker and it wouldn't get much feedback. Secondly,
not only did the thing not have to be level, it would play standing up on its
side. I **** you not. the arm is balaced in all axes and the tracking force
and antiskate were applied by calibrated springs. If you are going to have a
conventional arm, that's the way to do it.

And of course make it as long as possible.

That's not a good setup for discs that are warped or had an eccentric
hole -- and there were a lot of those. Arm mass should be low to deal
with those problems.

Isaac

Trevor Wilson forklarede:

**Oh yeah: If you do decide to begin destroying your old recordings, by using
the horrible Stanton 500, then you should NOT operate it at low force
settings. It should be used at AT LEAST 2 grammes. Check the manufacturer's
data on your cartridge. Operating a cartridge at too low a force will cause
more damage to the LP than too little.

You might want to rephrase the last statement :-)

Leif

--
Husk kørelys bagpå, hvis din bilfabrikant har taget den idiotiske
beslutning at undlade det.

"isw" wrote in message ]...

I had a couple with the S shaped arm and once I set it up as I saw fit,
it looked like the cartridge was in cockeyed, but the thing played well.
I mean really well. I didn't get that muddy sound toward the end of a side.

An S-shaped arm is theoretically inferior to a straight arm, if only because
it's less rigid. It does, however, accrue several advantages from the ability
to easily design a removable head shell.

isw wrote:

In article ,
wrote:

"This won't be much help to you with your particular problem of the
moment,..."

This is S.E.R. which means out of fifty responses about two of them hit the
spot. How many S.E.rers does it take to answer a question ? The number has
never been determined.

You are absolutely right about the linear tracking, though realize it is
not perfect either. Nothing is friction free enough so therefore there
is a motor and an optical pickup that tells the little motor when to
turn. It jogs along as the record plays which thus means there is
tracking error oscillating between negative and positive angle to the
groove. It is still a hell of alot better.

Among the worse of ideas was the aesthetically attractive yet a
practical nightmare known as the S shaped arm. First of all the thing
has more mass. The best arm is a straight line because it will have the
lowest mass. Another thing about those Ttables is that most of them set
the cartridge wrong anyway.

They generally tried to set the geometry so that tracking was perfect at two
point of the radius. they made a mistake thogh because they set the second
point too far from the innermost grooves. That is where it is the most
critical. That is where this non-tangental angle HURTS the most and causes
the worst groove wear.

I had a couple with the S shaped arm and once I set it up as I saw fit, it
looked like the cartridge was in cockeyed, but the thing played well. I mean
really well. I didn't get that muddy sound toward the end of a side.

I played ALOT of vinyl in the day. Funny now I would only consider it for
transcribing to digital.

One of my favorite Ttables ws the Dual 1229. First of all you could set
the thing right on top of a speaker and it wouldn't get much feedback.
Secondly, not only did the thing not have to be level, it would play
standing up on its side. I **** you not. the arm is balaced in all axes
and the tracking force and antiskate were applied by calibrated springs.
If you are going to have a conventional arm, that's the way to do it.

And of course make it as long as possible.

That's not a good setup for discs that are warped or had an eccentric
hole -- and there were a lot of those. Arm mass should be low to deal
with those problems.

It's the effective rotational inertia of the mass which is critical, not
the actual mass. An arm could be massive at the pivot and slender at
the cartridge end whilst still retaining a reasonably low rotational
inertia.

Other problems arisewhen attempting to play very badly warped discs,
such as the disc hitting the underside of the arm. If the arm is
designed to be well above the cartridge, so as to avoid contact with the
disc, then the displacement of the cartridge mass from the centre of
torsion of the arm can worsen the rotational resonances in the arm.

The whole business is fraught with difficulty


--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

"The whole business is fraught with difficulty "

That about sums it up. Thing is, remember at one time that's all we had. Think of all that went into making this inherently imperfect system work "perfectly".

I liked it. I liked the challenge of making things sound as good as possible given rotating disks and moving tape across heads. I liked looking at the print of an FM tuner even and figuring out which one was best. Damn, I remember when there wasn't even a PLL in an FM tuner, it had a sharply tuned circuit to pick up the pilot frequency and then a doubler. No oscilator. (WTF is wrong with that spelling ?, I really couldn't tellya right now)

I really shouldn't feel this old at 53. It's like when I was born they just invented the car or something. This is weird. The first Man on the moon and ****. And BTW, for the conspiracy theorists, of which I am one but not a crazy one, we DID put a Man on the moon.

Know how I know that ? If you REALLY think about it, you figure out that it would cost more to fake it. Kids used to have telescopes back then, and if it were faked there would be about a hundred thousand kids in Russia calling us out on it. Remember back then ? you walked into a Sears or some store and they had telescopes right by the door. They were on sale.

If it ever comes out that they faked the moon shot I will be REALLY impressed. It's just too easy to get busted doing it.

Now it appears we have the source figured out. With digital recording nobody wants to go through the hassle of LPs. Really. In fact I don't even use CDs anymore, everything is one the harddrive. If you bring a CD to me it is getting ripped summarily, period. When the tunes are on the harddrive, it never skips, gets scratched or anything. Well it can skip but that is a software problem usually. Transfer the file to a good(er) system and it is fine as long as the file is not ****ed up.

Speakngg of which, now that my "server" is on Linux and I haven't figured out how to give the permission for the other PCs to access my main library, I'll have to check see where else I have a copy of Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie.

My how things have changed. How long ago was it I would just go to the record cabinet and look toward the one end for it.

BTW, use yuor finger of a brush or something to clean the "needle". DO NOT BLOW ON IT. The moisture in your breath is not good for it.

On 11/28/2013 09:10 AM, wrote:
"The whole business is fraught with difficulty"


Speakngg of which, now that my "server" is on Linux and I haven't
figured out how to give the permission for the other PCs to access my
main library, I'll have to check see where else I have a copy of
Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie.


Samba is an implementation of the SMB/CIFS protocol for Unix systems,
providing support for cross-platform file and printer sharing with
Microsoft Windows, OS X, and other Unix systems. Samba can also function
as an NT4-style domain controller, and can integrate with both NT4
domains and Active Directory realms as a member server.

This package provides the components necessary to use Samba as a
stand-alone file and print server. For use in an NT4 domain or Active
Directory realm, you will also need the winbind package.

This package is not required for connecting to existing SMB/CIFS servers
(see smbclient) or for mounting remote filesystems (see cifs-utils).

http://www.samba.org

wrote:

...No oscilator.
(WTF is wrong with that spelling ?, I really couldn't tellya right
now)

You knocked the "L" out of it.


--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

On Tuesday, November 26, 2013 1:59:47 PM UTC-5, wrote:
This is my own turntable I've just gotten

out of the closet. I'd like to listen to some of my 70's records. The

unit I'm working on is an old Thorens TD160 turntable with an Stanton

gold body 500 cartridge. The cartridge is equipped with the elliptical stylus

designed to track at between 1 and 2 grams. I'm presently tracking at

1.25 grams without any apparent problems.



I would like to set this up as accurately as possible. I'm hoping that

someone can advise me on this. The manual I have is for a

slightly different unit with a newer tone arm, and all it mentions

about anti skate is to set it just slightly lower than your tracking

weight. It seems to run fine what ever anti skate is set to and

although I've made that adjustment to just over 1, I would like

to be a bit more precise than that if possible.



I thought I recall (way back when) that there was a procedure whereby

you leveled the unit, and then you played this "record" without

grooves. If the stylus remained in one spot without drifting then your

anti skate was correct. If it drifted, then a slight adjustment on the

anti skate was in order. I don't have any such "record" and I can't

think of a way to do something like that without damaging the stylus.

I was wondering if anyone had any further information pertaining to

this procedure? Thanks, Lenny

+So whatis a good cartridge/stylus combination made today, preferably not a cheap Chinese one. Lenny

On 29/11/2013 9:11 AM, wrote:
On Tuesday, November 26, 2013 1:59:47 PM UTC-5, wrote:
This is my own turntable I've just gotten

out of the closet. I'd like to listen to some of my 70's records. The

unit I'm working on is an old Thorens TD160 turntable with an Stanton

gold body 500 cartridge. The cartridge is equipped with the elliptical stylus

designed to track at between 1 and 2 grams. I'm presently tracking at

1.25 grams without any apparent problems.



I would like to set this up as accurately as possible. I'm hoping that

someone can advise me on this. The manual I have is for a

slightly different unit with a newer tone arm, and all it mentions

about anti skate is to set it just slightly lower than your tracking

weight. It seems to run fine what ever anti skate is set to and

although I've made that adjustment to just over 1, I would like

to be a bit more precise than that if possible.



I thought I recall (way back when) that there was a procedure whereby

you leveled the unit, and then you played this "record" without

grooves. If the stylus remained in one spot without drifting then your

anti skate was correct. If it drifted, then a slight adjustment on the

anti skate was in order. I don't have any such "record" and I can't

think of a way to do something like that without damaging the stylus.

I was wondering if anyone had any further information pertaining to

this procedure? Thanks, Lenny

+So whatis a good cartridge/stylus combination made today, preferably not a cheap Chinese one. Lenny


**There's lots and it depends on how deep your pockets are. I rather
like the Ortofon OM10 Super. Even the OM5E and OM3E are very fine carts,
at reasonable prices. For immense versatility, excellent tracking, you
can't go past a Shure M97XE.

--
Trevor Wilson www.rageaudio.com.au

Trevor Wilson udtrykte præcist:
On 28/11/2013 7:32 PM, Leif Neland wrote:
Trevor Wilson forklarede:

**Oh yeah: If you do decide to begin destroying your old recordings,
by using the horrible Stanton 500, then you should NOT operate it at
low force settings. It should be used at AT LEAST 2 grammes. Check the
manufacturer's data on your cartridge. Operating a cartridge at too
low a force will cause more damage to the LP than too little.

You might want to rephrase the last statement :-)


**Nope. Of course, it depends on the magnitude of the force differences.

Read again. What is best? Too low or too little?

Leif

--
Husk kørelys bagpå, hvis din bilfabrikant har taget den idiotiske
beslutning at undlade det.

On 29/11/2013 7:30 PM, Leif Neland wrote:
Trevor Wilson udtrykte præcist:
On 28/11/2013 7:32 PM, Leif Neland wrote:
Trevor Wilson forklarede:

**Oh yeah: If you do decide to begin destroying your old recordings,
by using the horrible Stanton 500, then you should NOT operate it at
low force settings. It should be used at AT LEAST 2 grammes. Check the
manufacturer's data on your cartridge. Operating a cartridge at too
low a force will cause more damage to the LP than too little.

You might want to rephrase the last statement :-)


**Nope. Of course, it depends on the magnitude of the force differences.

Read again. What is best? Too low or too little?


**Impossible to answer, unless the following is known:

* The minimum suggested tracking force.
* The maximum suggest tracking force.
* The intended minimum tracking force.
* The intended maximum tracking force.

You won't get an argument from me WRT high tracking forces and damage to
records. You also won't get an argument from WRT low tracking forces and
damage to records.


--
Trevor Wilson www.rageaudio.com.au