Is LP wear a myth?

[jls001]

@Sunder : just run through your records. Most likely you'll find a record which has just one or two tracks on one side, and the rest of the record surface towards the spindle will be blank. You can use the blank portion of the record for setting your anti skate force.

Addendum : strictly speaking, once you run your stylus over a blank record, it will create it's own groove, and that record will no longer be strictly a blank record, and therefore not suited to be used a second time.

Addendum 2: the skating force acting across different parts of the record surface is not static but dynamic. Most anti skating schemes employ static anti skating. So the anti skating force cannot be accurate, but is good enough for regular playback. Don't get to anal about it

 

[sunder]

@Sunder : just run through your records. Most likely you'll find a record which has just one or two tracks on one side, and the rest of the record surface towards the spindle will be blank. You can use the blank portion of the record for setting your anti skate force.

Addendum : strictly speaking, once you run your stylus over a blank record, it will create it's own groove, and that record will no longer be strictly a blank record, and therefore not suited to be used a second time.

Addendum 2: the skating force acting across different parts of the record surface is not static but dynamic. Most anti skating schemes employ static anti skating. So the anti skating force cannot be accurate, but is good enough for regular playback. Don't get to anal about it

jls001, thank you. One side of a record which has one or two tracks and after that it has larger blank area which will not have like the portion of 'musical track', instead will have grooves like ~~~ or spaced grooves on which the arm will travel very fast to the end. In this situation, how could we check the force of 'anti skating'? Please clarify. And as you said, the blank record surface will not serve for the second time as smooth blank surface, you are correct.
Thank you,
Regards.

 

[Hari Iyer]

If the arm travels very fast to the end then there is too less of anti skating force applied, you need to increase the anti skating so that the stylus is in place without rapid roll forward.

 

[G401fan]

Addendum : strictly speaking, once you run your stylus over a blank record, it will create it's own groove, and that record will no longer be strictly a blank record, and therefore not suited to be used a second time.

Whew! Now that that poor diamond tip has metamorphosed into a 'cutting stylus', imagine the havoc it must create when trawling through the regular grooves of a standard LP. Definitely not suitable for playing a second time.

If the arm travels very fast to the end then there is too less of anti skating force applied, you need to increase the anti skating so that the stylus is in place without rapid roll forward.

Would be glad to see the arm - any model - that, when set to its maximum calibrated anti-skate, would prevent it from sliding to the centre when set in the blank portion of an LP that is in 33 rpm motion. On a perfectly horizontal platter, that is.

 

[sunder]

If the arm travels very fast to the end then there is too less of anti skating force applied, you need to increase the anti skating so that the stylus is in place without rapid roll forward.

Thanks Hari. I will try. Regards.

 

[omishra]

IMO antiskate is not applied on plain surface. Its phenomena experienced while stylus moved inside groove which are ending at enter of motion.

 

[G401fan]

IMO antiskate is not applied on plain surface. Its phenomena experienced while stylus moved inside groove which are ending at enter of motion.

Precisely. Skate becomes a measurable force only when the stylus/groove interface is in motion. And contrary to popular misinformation, it is not a centripetal force, but rather a vector force created by the cartridge offset to the main axis of the tonearm. Again, only when the stylus/groove are moving. The lighter the VTF, the more the impact of a wrongly set anti-skate. With higher VTFs (beyond 1.5 gms) most tonearms are set to apply a stronger anti-skate force, but gravity also counteracts against skate. On a blank LP, or at the end of a normal LP, it will automatically slide towards the centre.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Whew! Now that that poor diamond tip has metamorphosed into a 'cutting stylus', imagine the havoc it must create when trawling through the regular grooves of a standard LP. Definitely not suitable for playing a second time.

Well, yes... It's diamond, which is about as hard as hard gets, moving against vinyl, which is really rather soft. A blunt/damaged stylus on a badly set up deck will cause havoc, which will result in noticeable degradation over a noticeable number of plays.

The people here who are advising on how to avoid that are specialists, enthusiasts. Imagine, back forty years, when people were playing records because that was how music came, on whatever deck was to hand.

People like me :sad:

(Of course, there were serious enthusiasts even then, who were a lot more careful, but I guess they tended to be somewhat older and, sometimes, at least, somewhat more sober!)

 

[Shivam]

Recently i tried cleaning my records using "Collins liquid soap spray" and found them to be 100% effective in cleaning records. I have noticed that casual cleaning will not help. You need to scrub them with a micro-fibre cloth (similar to how you scrub your utensil while washing them) and VIOLA they sound as good as new.

I have also done the following calibrations / cleaning of my Dual player,

1. Aligned the tone arm to be exactly horizontal with the base.
2. Cleaned the cartridge joining the tonearm with alcohol.
3. Cleaned the stylus joining the cartridge with alcohol.
4. Adjusted the counter weight with precision.
5. Adjusted the anti-skating to prevent drag of the tone-arm using a "Blank" portion of one of the records. The anti-skating markings in the player can be wrong after years of wear and tear.
6. Added the correct weight of around 1.4grams for the cartridge.
7. I have also added a ferrite core to the RCA cable from the TT to my phono input stage to cancel out all RF & EMI noise (if any) getting induced by other heavy transformers close to the TT. There is quite a significant reduction in noise floor due to this.

The above activity consumed almost and entire day on a weekend but the outcome is more than satisfactory. I now am listening to vinyls daily with no hiss, pop or scratches which was not the case earlier.

Cheers,

You did put in a lot of effort. Just a few notes -
For adjusting the height of the tonearm (VTA), use a LP which matches in thickness to most of the LPs that you have in your collection. Using 180g LPs or thin LPs like from CBS can cause errors with most of the commonly available LPs in one's collection. Do not make it parallel to the base.
Don't use alcohol for cleaning the stylus joint with cartridge. It can permanently damage the stylus due to small amounts of alcohol going into the diamond's joint.
Since you cleaned the cartridge joint with the tonearm, it is specially recommended to adjust the zenith and azimuth of the cartridge too.

For more information -
Cartridge Alignment: The Basics Explained

 

[thampi]

lubricating the record with plain water will help to reduce scratch noise and increase the life of the record

 

[omishra]

lubricating the record with plain water will help to reduce scratch noise and increase the life of the record

But decrease life of stylus. Also clean dry records can not be compared with wet record. Stylus will plough through wet grim and fix it deep inside the groove making more damage.