A new way of adjusting anti skate!

I am bewildered. Several points made defy logic.

Antiskating has nothing to do with offset angle? I suppose you could say that the skating force is due to proper tonearm geometry of which offset angle is one factor.

A straight arm with no overhang has little skating when it is tangent to the groove.

A 12" arm with a smallish offset has a lesser amount of skating than a 9" arm with more offset. 

The water skier outside the wake has created an offset angle. If Wally wants to look at it from a different angle, it is a free country, but looking at it as a function of offset angle is perfectly appropriate.

Poorly set antiskating does not affect the volume of either channel and does not move the center image. It effects the groove velocity at which the cartridge will start miss tracking one channel or the other. Miss tracking causes distortion, very annoying distortion.

Boy, is it cold outside! Don't forget your gloves and hat!

My buddy in Burlington VT told me what you guys are expecting today. Wind chill of -25 degrees. I don’t own a coat for that. I am vacationing, if you can call it a vacation when you are already retired, at our house on the island of Vieques off the coast of Puerto Rico. The daily high temperature is about 85 and the low temperature is about 72. The beaches are beautiful and mostly empty.

An underhung tonearm all of which have zero headshell offset will have zero antiskate when stylus/cantilever are tangent to the groove or perpendicular to the LP radius in Wally terms. As for the effect or lack thereof of headshell offset angle in an overhung tonearm, I just took Wally’s conclusion at face value, that the demonstration applies for a spherical stylus on a grooveless vinyl surface. For me, that is just another reason not to set anti-skate using a flat vinyl surface with no grooves.

@lewm , I would say I am jealous but I just bought a new set of ski boots and skis. In this cold weather the ski areas can make snow like crazy. One good storm and we are all set. I have to justify the expense:) 

Do you have another system in your tropical abode? 

I have read that re-tippers say MOST styluses they work on are un-evenly worn, indicating that MOST do not have anti-skate set properly.

Ray Leung of VAS just checked and cleaned half a dozen of my cartridges using their powerful scope. He readily identified the varieties of shapes within seconds, and happily all mine have even wear and are good to keep using. I risked buying some used cartridges, I was quite happy to learn the sellers were truthful.

 I’m sure that would not have been true in the past because I simply used and trusted the dials on the arms to be accurate. Since 2019 I have discovered they are not accurate, and learned new methods.

Ray confirmed, yes, MOST stylus they work on have uneven wear, and that means that WE, US, need to do a better job of setting anti-skate. 

I start with making sure my system is balanced l/r using test tones, SPL meter, then familiar music, not LP’s, rather CD’s and familiar Reel to Reel Tapes, that is fundamental.

Protractor, overhang, null points, azimuth, VTF, all checked and frequently re-checked.

then I use a blank lp and set anti-skate while visibly watching the added force counter-act the natural skating force, and re-check frequently. I check outer, center, inner, and find the best compromise, if not steady I allow a speck of inward, not outward pull. Every once in a while I buy a new blank LP as they do get scratches.

Now, final adjustment: how about simply hearing the results of proper floating in the center of a stereo groove?  Music with strong L/C/R content is needed.

Buy both a CD and LP of this Album,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_Night_in_San_Francisco

side two, last two tracks, all 3 guitarists play, and you can refine your anti-skate so the imaging of the LP matches the Imaging of the CD, get John McLaughlin dead center, Paco and Al equal when soloing L or R. 

You can make notes about where the dials are set, but I simply start by watching the physical reality, and finish by listening to the imaging. 

And you will have some wonderful music to listen to, it's a terrific album.

@elliottbnewcombjr 

I agree that most folk have anti-skating wrong - mostly too high.

Look how many used cartridges have offset cantilevers - usually an indicator of anti-skate being out.

However in your methodology ( which I think is wrong ), you would have to be sure that your system does not have an imbalance to ensure that you do not end up using anti-skate force to correct an imbalance.

I prefer to use least distortion, optimal tracking and visual checking of the cantilever to ensure anti-skating is correct.