Ancient AR Turntable with NO anti skate

stringreen,

Normansizemore.....Do you remember the Harmann-Kardon turntable with linear tracking??

Yes I do.  It was the Harman Kardon ST-7 with the RABCO tonearm.
They had some problems at first, but I have seen those perform quite well. 

I believe that originally, RABCO was an independent company and Harman Kardon eventually bought them out and took over manufacturing.  That is when some of the minor production issues got sorted out.  It was quite popular in the mid seventies.

Norman

normansizemore, I still own a SL-8 Rabco arm that's slated to get an update....replace the metal beaded chain drive with a plasticized cable version, some 'creative damping' to isolate motor and carriage, and whatever else comes to mind.  When set up properly, they work quite nicely.  I've got the mechanical version of the TT & arm version as well; doesn't function as well as the SL but I got it 'back when' for next to nil as a curiosity piece.  I've also a Garrard Z-100 and a Teac full auto TT that's not as nice as the Technics SL-10 that I used to have once upon a time...

I like tangential arms.  That's the way the masters are cut, so it just makes sense to me to play them that way.  Anti-skate becomes a non-issue....

I'd go to an air-bearing arm in a heartbeat, but I don't have the disposable $ to go there.  So I play with the less esoteric stuff that works nearly as well.
If it goes south on me, I can avoid getting stressed out over it. ;)  

normansizemore
Done correctly, the dreaded tangential tonearm can be the last word on the matter. Tracking perfectly. Makes one wonder why we so many pivitol tonearms and so few tangential?

Norman - I think you answered your own question in the same paragraph when you used the words .............."dreaded tangential tonearm"
8^0
.......audiophiles and perception, sometimes, can go hand in hand.

"Done correctly" is the key. It needs to work, and it needs to work for a long time too. without a lot of hassle. There are good and bad designs for everything.

This kind of reminds me of the early Beta vs VHS thing...VHS won out because you could fit more I Love Lucy episodes on one tape.

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So Stringreen you continue to defend your position of no antiskate here and on other threads. And why not...many have tried to defy physics, even in this hobby. So let me ask you ..

Do you drive your car with the front right tire down a few PSI ?

Why not settle this and take your "used" cart to Peter at SS, or one of the other cart rebuilders. Let him get back to you on its wear pattern.

@asvjerry "I'd go to an air-bearing arm in a heartbeat, but I don't have the disposable $ to go there."

Well, I just may have the bridge for you. Kidding. I use a Trans-Fi air bearing tonearm, cost about $1000. Actually, I use two: one for my Nottingham Mentor, upgraded to highest 2015 standard, and heavily modded; and one for my DIY air bearing TT. They bear a Mayajima Zero and Koetsu RSP respectively.

What I like best about the Trans-Fi is that it seems to be made for tweaking. Everything is exposed and accessible. You can add brass weights to make it heavier, you can experiment with damping, you can play with the air pressure, etc. Settings are dead simple and very stable. It uses clever engineering in place of costly machining. You buy it from the factory, not a distributor. And, when I bought mine, the owner himself went on a mission to make my installation a success.

You MAY be able to do better for 5 or 10 times the money, but, I suspect, only in terms of convenience. Opinion only - haven't tried the major alternatives in my system - but I don't see the flexibility in the other designs that I see in this one. See 'tweaking', above. 

Downside: the major downside is the name: Terminator. Other than that, azimuth is dead stable, absolutely repeatable, and intuitive, but it cannot be done on the fly, and is fiddly to adjust. Tracking weight is a little fiddly too - but rock stable and intuitive. That's all.

All in all, highly recommended, period. For the money, unapproachable.

Regarding Stringreen’s advocacy for no anti-skating:

As I mentioned earlier, my experience is comprised of cartridges having relatively high compliance. In recent times a Grace F9E, F9E Ruby, a Soundsmith-retipped F9E Ruby, a Grado Reference Sonata, and currently an Audio Technica AT-ART9. And way back when a Shure and some other AT, with a different turntable and arm. In every one of those cases an anti-skating setting of zero, or anything even close to it, would result in such extreme cantilever deflection toward the outer edge of the record that it would seem preposterous to even try it.

Stringreen mentioned in another thread some time ago that he sees no such deflection. Perhaps that is due to his use of cartridges having lower compliance, or perhaps his arm is applying some amount of anti-skating force even when none is intentionally introduced, or perhaps it is due to some other factor. In any event, while I don’t question or doubt his findings, methinks he is extrapolating too broadly from them.

Regards,
-- Al