Anti skate. I think something's wrong

Stringreen, have you given thought that your take on anti-skate might apply more to uni-pivots than to gimbaled tonearms?

It's been awhile since I adjusted AS, but maybe(and this is done with a gimbaled tonearm) my final result, which was just less than where the sound becomes locked in(in a way-maybe where everything, like channel balance, seems to be correct), has to do a little bit with the "opening of sound" he talks about.  i do remember sleeping on what appeared to be the correct setting(based on channel balance, etc.) and was less enthused about listening to music.  When I put it back(remember these changes to AS were almost imperceptible movements), the magic came back. 

Blueranger, I think you are correct about checking the level of your turntable.  I think that's most likely the problem, when you have a quality arm, yet have to put AS at it's maximum.

Peter Lederman probably has forgotten more about vinyl set-up than I will ever know, but I do have to disagree with him on one small point; the genesis of the skating force begins with the fact that 95% of tonearms are mounted so as to have the stylus overhang the spindle (by, typically ~15mm).  This is done to obtain two points on the surface of the LP where the tracking error can be null, but the trade-off is that (without also introducing headshell offset angle) the cantilever can never be parallel to the groove.  This is proven by the Pythagorean theorem, where the tonearm is side A of a right angle triangle, the radius of the LP from stylus to spindle is side B, and the P2S distance is side C.  Because you start out with a situation where A>C, due to overhang, then the Pythagorean theorem that governs the size relationships of a right-angle triangle can never be met (C-squared = A-squared + B-squared). Headshell offset angle, in conjunction with overhang, allows for two points on the LP surface where the cantilever IS parallel to the groove, but some skating force is present even then, because of headshell offset angle.  Those two null points for tracking error are the only points where ALL the skating force is due to headshell offset angle. Otherwise, it's both overhang and headshell offset that cause skating.