Cartridge Set Up Essentials

jtimothya, you do not do yourself a favor when you use terms like, "sonically astonishing." The difference between "Power On" and "Power Off" is "sonically astonishing." A degree or two of arc is not. I am sorry that you spent so much on the Feickert but the DB systems protractor is less than 1/2 the price and twice as accurate because due to it's geometry it magnifies the error allowing you to see it easier. It is a little finicky to use but once you get the hang of it it works brilliantly and on any tonearm and cartridge. The trick with the "landing spot" is to use an awl and put a little indent in the circle to keep the stylus in place. Not to large or it will swallow the end of the cantilever. I also put a dab of low viscosity cyanoacrylate in the indent then quickly wipe it of which stabilizes the indent so it does not get progressively larger with use.  

Good suggestions above and most of all patience, plenty of time and no distractions.  The more you do it the better you get.

Fremer's video is good.  The late A.J. Conti provides a setup video with his tonearms that is very informative.  His theories can be applied to tonearm/cartridge setup in general. 

A couple years back I bought the Rega Atlas Stylus Force Gauge. After using a couple different gauges, one was a digital scale but was magnetically attractive so was virtually impossible to use accurately. 

The Rega is extremely accurate and the readings are repeatable on subsequent readings.

I have found that setting anti skate by ear (balanced right left image) to be the best way.

Gary

Pops, AJ was quite the character. Basis is in Southern N.H not far from where I lived. A friend ( who has a Debut) and I would visit on occasion.
He almost got me to buy one of his turntables (gave me a great price on a mildly used unit) but young kids in private school kept me from doing it.
He left us a way too early (59 I think). So, all you young guys who think you are immortal get your cholesterol and blood pressure checked!

Gary, setting anti skate by ear is sort of whimsical. Skating effects mostly tracking ability. It increases tracking and wear on the Left, inside channel and reduces tracking but increases wear on the Right, outside channel. On low level passages everything might sound just fine. The miss-tracking will occur only on highly modulated passages where the distortion is harder to hear. Setting anti skate is always a ballpark affair depending on position on the record, stylus profile, VTF, groove modulation and god knows what else. Ideally one should shoot for the mean whatever that is? If you listen to Peter Ledermann and Frank Schroeder you set anti skate by getting a slow drift inward on the blank portion of the run out area. Ledermann's opposition to test records is that he feels they over modulate the groove to get the distortion meaning that you are optimizing the anti skate for highly modulated grooves and not the vast majority which are only moderately modulated. My own feeling on this is that on the Hi Fi News Test Record the anti skate test is in the middle of the record where groove speed and friction (skating force) are middle of the road and since it is tracking that we are worried why wouldn't you want to set the anti skate for the hardest to track passages?
When I use the test record the tonearm stays absolutely still in the run out area. If you get the vinyl of the Lumineer's Cleopatra the third side is blank which makes looking at drift much easier. Anyway, letting the arm drift in very slowly (backing off just a little from the setting you get with the test record) seems to be a legitimate way of setting for intermediate modulations. It is only plus or minus perhaps 5% of the total anti skate force applied so any way you can get it in the ballpark is just fine. 
So Gary, check your ear against the run out area test and see how it stacks up:)