WallySkater v2.1 Pro by WAM Engineering LLC - The only device that accurately measures tonearm horizontal forces (including anti-skate force) - New in box
WallySkater v2.1 Pro by WAM Engineering LLC - The only device that accurately measures tonearm horizontal forces (including anti-skate force) - New in box
ACC0410
Description
WallySkater v2.1 Pro
The WallySkater, along with the WallyTractor, are the two BASIC setup tools in your analog optimization arsenal. The WallySkater exists to make sure the effort you have put into the proper alignment of your cartridge is not ruined by your tonearm. It is the only device that accurately measures tonearm horizontal forces (including anti-skate force) and is used to assess the health of your tonearm bearing & mechanical resistance from tonearm wiring.
Use the WallySkater BEFORE aligning your stylus/cantilever to confirm tonearm is not influencing cantilever angle. This is a good test to make on your tonearm periodically to ensure bearing health remains stable and routing of tonearm wires does not shift to influence tonearm behavior. Use the WallySkater again to apply proper anti-skating force before measuring for ideal azimuth angle of your cartridge.
Proper setting of anti-skating is essential to the alignment of the stylus within the groove, maintaining of even compression on the cartridge suspension system and to the preservation of both the stylus and the record grooves. Be CERTAIN you have your anti-skating set correctly.
Wally used to call his WallySkater "one of my best Trojan Horses" because many invitations he accepted to setup equipment owned by proud designers or audiophiles often resulted in the destruction of the owner's faith in the quality of their equipment.
The WallySkater is a ruthless detective of bearing quality and poor anti-skating mechanism design. Over the years, the WallySkater has been an essential tool for finding problems tonearm manufacturers and audiophiles didn't even know existed.
How good is your tonearm?
What’s wrong with using test track records to determine the anti-skating setting?
Skating is caused by two elements: Effective Moment Arm and friction. Effective Moment Arm is a geometric function having to do with the relationship of the tonearm to the record. The friction that causes skating force is found at the junction of stylus and groove walls. As friction increases, skating force increases which necessitates more anti-skating force to counter it. Read more HERE about the mechanical causes of skating force.
The primary cause of friction (other than the vertical tracking force, of course) is the contour (musical content) within the groove. Loud musical passages have greater groove contour and therefore result in greater friction. Anti-skating test tracks are extremely high contour/amplitude tracks that are designed to cause the tonearm to mistrack – something which is easily heard. However, recording engineers don’t want our stylus to mistrack so they don’t push the groove amplitude too far (and we can thank them for this). So, if we are setting our anti-skating according to signal amplitude in the groove which is almost never present during music playback then we will be setting our anti-skating for this high amplitude (high friction) track and therefore will have our anti-skating set far too high for normal musical playback, causing excessive wear on the right channel groove and stylus.
CLICK HERE for WallySkater Instructional Videos part ONE
CLICK HERE for WallySkater Instructional Videos part TWO
CLICK HERE for Understanding Tonearm Behavior Videos part ONE
CLICK HERE for Understanding Tonearm Behavior Videos part TWO
Musica & Video Italy is the WAM Engineering sole authorized distributor for all the EEC countries:
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia , Spain, Sweden and Hungary.
WallySkater instructions