Analog Corner

As I watched WAM Engineering's J.R. Boisclair give an advanced turntable setup seminar at last November's Capitol Audiofest, a light went off. I'm being figurative, but the lights did—literally—go off, and then on again, as I flipped the switch for Boisclair's presentation (see the above photo), which featured both screen time and an in-person lecture.

Boisclair's presentation did not include setting up an actual, physical turntable. Rather, using slides and 1000:1 scale 3D-printed groove and stylus models, he dug into the advanced concepts involved in setting up a turntable and why those concepts matter.

After the presentation, a few people asked me if I was comfortable playing "second fiddle" when I'm usually up there myself doing the talking. I told them I'm perfectly happy flipping light switches and learning from the successor to the abundant Wally Malewicz knowledge base. After all, most of what I know about the subject came directly from Wally, a mechanical engineer, who, while not infallible, was most often correct.

Boisclair is not a mechanical engineer, but he was Wally's longtime friend and assistant. Today, he is assisted by Wally's son Andrzej, who, like Wally, is a mechanical engineer. He is vice-president of R&D at Medtronic, a giant healthcare tech company.

The light that went off for me during the presentation was the realization that correctly setting up a turntable is as much an exercise in diagnostics as it is in getting the cartridge precisely aligned in the tonearm.

I usually try to avoid setting up turntables for other people, but Boisclair's mostly theoretical presentation had me flashing back to some setup experiences I've had, beginning with my +1 date to Jack White's pressing plant grand opening in Detroit's Cass Corridor back in February 2017.

Just to be clear, this wasn't a "date"-date (though he turned out to be an attractive man). My wife didn't want to attend the event, so I ran a contest on AnalogPlanet, and this reader won, so he was my date. He had to pay his own way, but he was thrilled to win, and the evening was as much fun as we'd hoped it would be and included having a photo taken with Jack White.

Afterward, he called me to ask if I could help his friend with a stubborn turntable problem. "Of course, happy to help," I replied.

I heard from the friend a few days later.

He told me he had a 9" Kuzma 4Point tonearm mounted on a Dr. Feickert Woodpecker turntable fitted with a Lyra Etna cartridge. He'd bought it all new and had it set up by someone he trusted to do a good job, but neither he nor his wife were satisfied with the sound. It just sounded "off," he told me, though he couldn't be more specific.

He told me that over time the Etna's cantilever began to skew so far left that it interfered with tracking, and the sound seriously suffered. Off to Lyra went the Etna via Etna importer AudioQuest, and he was left for quite some time with no vinyl playback—too bad because vinyl was his main musical source.

Months later, the same person who installed the cartridge the first time reinstalled the repaired cartridge. Soon thereafter, it again began to skew. This time, the unlucky 4Point owner called me before the cantilever got too far off. I listed every 4Point setup error and mechanical culprit I could think of and asked him to check them all. Everything appeared normal as best I could ascertain at a distance.

I've known for some time that the antiskating weight Kuzma supplies (or perhaps used to supply) with the 4Point is too heavy and that adjusting the weight's position per Kuzma's instruction manual produces excessive antiskating force. Even placing the weight as close as possible to the pulley to fully minimize antiskating force turns out to be excessive with many cartridges.

How do I know that? Because I have the WallySkater tool from WAM Engineering. While setting antiskating is intrinsically an exercise in imprecision, this tool offers a reliable, relatively precise way to set it; its settings are corroborated by the other worthwhile antiskating setting accessories. (Telarc's Omnidisc for instance; the grooveless-record approach is not worthwhile, in my opinion.) For more about antiskating, please read "Everything You Know About Skating Is Wrong!" at AnalogPlanet. Kuzma, along with American importer Elite Audio/Visual Distribution, is now said to be including a lighter antiskating weight with 4Point arms.

It was time for me to meet this unlucky 40-something vinyl enthusiast and examine his turntable in person. He brought it over. As we talked, it became clear that he was disappointed with the whole course of his investment and ownership of this costly analog front end. It wasn't a casual purchase, and he felt he'd done it the right way, buying the arm from a dealer and having it properly set up by someone who ought to have expertise—so what was going on?

The first thing I did was put the WallySkater device on the arm. The WallySkater suspends the arm from a string hanging from a crossbar; at the end of the string is a loop you place around the finger lift, allowing the arm to dangle free in space. The antiskating force applied to the arm, by whatever means—string/weight, magnetic repulsion, etc.—should move the suspended arm toward the platter's outer edge. A plumb bob acts as a vertical reference, and a segmented plastic rulerlike platform allows you to measure the distance between the plumb bob and the string looped around the finger lift.

When antiskating is disabled, the plumb bob and loop should line up with one another, more or less. When the antiskating is engaged, the arm should move rightward—toward the outside of the record—and the distance between the bob and loop should be approximately 8–12 segments of the ruler's markings, depending on the length of the arm and the tracking force applied. This is also a good way to check out the vertical bearing's free play. (The vertical bearing is the one that controls horizontal movement.)

If the arm sticks, something is seriously wrong.

Once, in front of a few hundred people at a show in Copenhagen, Denmark, and televised on a big screen, I discovered an expensive, sticky arm—embarrassing for the manufacturer. We chalked it up to shipping damage. Had a dealer installed it and not had a way to check the bearing movement, it might be playing (poorly) today in some unlucky audiophile's system.

The photo shows a different individual's 4Point with a 20+ WallySkater deviation produced using the larger Kuzma antiskating weight. Someone had set it approximately and clearly incorrectly. That's way too much antiskating force. Although it's not visible in the photo, the cantilever's slant is evident even with a stationary platter.

But back to the 4Point 'arm in question: When I suspended this 4Point arm it swung wildly, almost violently, rightward. I'd never seen anything like it. I removed the antiskating weight from the lever and the arm continued to swing wildly. I disabled the lever and this odd behavior persisted. What in the world?

I separated the arm from the platform on which it rests so that I could examine two of the 4Point's four points—the ones responsible for the arm's vertical movement. They appeared normal, as did the cups they sit in. The post in which sit the other two points—the vertically arrayed pair that support horizontal movement—felt as if they were correctly positioned within the vertical post, but this is a sealed structure. Clearly, the excess rotational force producing the wild rightward swing would require diagnosing by Franc Kuzma.