A new way of adjusting anti skate!

@luisma31 , I have the HFN analog test record. The problem with this method is in order to get the cartridge to miss track audibly you have to use very high groove velocities. This then over estimates the antiskating required for your average passage. The blank record trick also over estimates the anti skating force because the very tip of the stylus digs into the vinyl increasing the frictional force. Play a blank record then look at it under the light and you will see the spiral scratch. 

The most accurate way to set your average antiskating force is to trust the math and shoot for 9 to 11% of VTF. 10% is a nice round number. You can do this by measuring it directly which is what I do or spend $250 and get a Wally Skater. It works. It just seems to be a bit much for a few pieces of acrylic and a string. You can get a digital stylus force gauge for $30. But, you have to change the force vector from horizontal to vertical. 

That equation is bogus IF it defines “headshell angle”= headshell offset angle. In which case the skating force would be a constant which we know it is not. However, if headshell angle is defined as (tracking angle error + headshell offset angle), maybe it makes sense.  Gotta think about it a little more but that seems to work.

I was interested in your response re how you use the scale.  Dover explained your method, or as I understood his explanation of your method, as one in which you hold the scale vertically against the fingerlift on the headshell, with VTF set to zero and the arm floating.  From your last post, I gather that is not the case.  So what is your method, exactly?  Did you try anything akin to my idea?

Luisma, Depends upon how the AS device on your particular tonearm is graduated. I have often wondered about this.  For vintage Japanese tonearms and some modern ones that have magnetic antiskate devices, we typically see the dial marked in whole numbers: 1,2,3, etc. And the owners manual will often tell the user to set the AS device to a value equal to VTF.  This gives some of us the impression that AS should equal VTF.  But I wonder if in at least some cases, the manufacturer marks the dial as a guide only.  In other words, for dial marking of "2", you get an amount of AS that the manufacturer thinks is correct for VTF =2g.  But the AS may be much lower in gm of force than an actual 2g.  So when you say you are setting at 1.6 for a VTF = 1.4g, I don't think it necessarily means you are using 1.6g of AS.

trust the math and shoot for 9 to 11% of VTF

So basically for 1.4 gr of VTF use 0.14 gr of  "measured AS", towards the outer part of the disc of course

Use an amount that does not give you distortion in the R channel (too little) or in the L channel (too much) and does not result in a deviated cantilever after several hours of play.  And then, forgeddaboudit.