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Lyra Delos suspension aging?

Recently I noticed that my anti-skate requirement had "drifted" (hadn't been adjusted for 2 years).
Found it hard to blame the tonearm because the weight is still at the same point that I set it to and positionally the thread controlling the pulley+weight looks equally correct and stable.
Other possibilities occurred such as relaxation of the arm wiring with settlement. (Arm was installed at the same time as the cart.)

Finally, I turned my attention to the cart's suspension. Has anyone noticed their cart in need of an "anti-skate reboot" over time? The cart has done less than 800 hrs.

Of course, AS could be a red-herring altogether. It's also possible that metallic debris may have been attracted inside the generator and ended up fouling the cantilever.

Theories?
Needless to say I'll be watching it more attentively from this point. Forewarned is forearmed. ;^)

Now that I'm officially retired I'll have plenty of time to investigate matters such as this :)
At the moment I'm listening to an old magnetic tape recording of a Genesis' live performance of "Twilight Alehouse" broadcast by the BBC on FM radio 40 years ago.
That track seems somehow very appropriate to my new circumstances ;^) :)
moonglum
czarivey
4,494 posts
 
Perhaps the anti-skate was actually not necessary from the very beginning in your particular case. If there's a way to measure VTF using sophisticated or simple scale, than it's far more sophisticated to measure actual anti-skate.

To achieve perfect anti-skate I first balance completely cartridge with counterweight with anti-skate set-up at zero and TT perfectly leveled. Then I bring tonearm closer to the middle at approximate location of the deadwax and see if it will return back by itself which indicates that anti-scate is already there and likely not necessary to set from zero which happens with lots of arms I've dealt with.
islandmandan
848 posts
 
I have nothing else to add, with the exception of, congratulations on your retirement. It's great, is it not?

Regards, and enjoy,
Dan
moonglum OP
605 posts
 
Dear Jonathan,
Many thanks for your kind offer. Do you think the suspension could be an issue in this case?

Kind regards...
moonglum OP
605 posts
 
Dear Czarivey,
I can simplify matters by saying yes A/S was necessary (or appeared so). That's an interesting suggestion you've made. I didn't deliberately check for any "latent" A/S after balancing but I would have noticed if the arm moved of its own volition after doing so, so I can safely say that it didn't.
Actually I've often used tiny induced degrees of A/S to check the condition of gimballed bearings when signing across the LP.
The arm mentioned here is a unipivot and has very low friction therefore I was alert to the arm reacting to any stimulus.
Regardless of this, thank you for ideas you've put forward.

Thanks Dan :)
Astonishingly I've yet to manage to clock more hours on the system per week than when I was working - in fact I'm sure it's less(!)
Boss No 1 (wife) and Boss No 2 (daughter) must be keeping me more gainfully occupied than anticipated :)
My new jobs are : Chauffeur, housekeeper, gardener, interior decorator, financial advisor, financier etc....

Apart from that it beats the old routine ;^)
All the best m8.
jcarr
341 posts
 
Dear Moonglum:

If the anti-skate setting was too high or too low, it is possible that the constant side-force would cause the Delos suspension to take on a "set" after some time. When we ship new cartridges, we make the cantilevers as straight as possible, but when customers send us back those same cartridges later for inspection and servicing, more than a few have cantilevers that have become tilted to one side (although not all of these are due to improper anti-skate settings - undoubtedly some of these tilted cantilevers occurred because the cartridge received an impact).

It is also likely that some amount of debris has been gradually sucked into the vicinity of the generator coils, but if the Delos' tracking abilities remain similar to what they were when the cartridge was new, probably not enough debris has collected for it to be a problem.

kind regards, jonathan carr
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