Anti-skate

>>Agreed.

Knowing it's almost over makes the last track of any Madonna, Britney, or Michael Bolton, album the best.<<

Any of those are bound to cause irreparable damage to a tt and cart....

The last track always sounds best.

That indicates that your alignment is off to the opposite side of correct than the OP. Well, unless you do listen to Madonna. ;-)

Stringreen, I'm sure that you overlooked or took for granted that Ghost_rider knew that the main purpose of anti-skate is to counteract the inward pull on the arm that the record exerts as it gets to the inner grooves. If you look at the inner part of the record, the circles made by the cutter-head become smaller, as compared to the outer grooves. This exerts a bigger force inward on the tonearm and cartridge. In fact, I believe that "Hi-Fi Answers" (Alvin Gold, Jimmy Hughes, David Prackel, Keith Howard where are you?) measured the total harmonic distortion(THD)in the inner grooves as being much greater than the THD in the outer grooves.

Jaybo's comment about the last song being less dynamic as an audio trick is correct, I believe. Dan_ed, what a system you have! I would think that owning a Basis arm allows you to ask Conti(the ultimate Analog perfectionist) about anti-skate. Ghost_rider, what I do about anti-skate, tracking force(VTF), and vertical tracking angle(VTA) is to look up the manufacturers specifications, and also look at what reviews or owners have to say. Then, I use those as a guide, or I keep them in mind while I try to fine tune them by ear. That's why I started this thread-to give a guide to people(in my case, what it would sound like, if you do it by ear). I'm sure Raul could give some advice here, but I'm not sure he could dumb it down for the everyday person(includes me). Ghost_rider, I believe that the standard answer on anti-skate is to set it to the the same value as the tracking force(2 grams downforce=the 2 setting on anti-skate). The initial controversy, in my mind, came from Harry Pearson's review of the original Koetsu Rosewood-in which he found the best anti-skate value was much less the specified value.

VPI's official word is that no anti-skating is the best anti-skating. Harry does make a gizo that can be adjusted for force and where on the record that force accumulates. That is to say, it can add force at the end of the record, add force at the beginning of the record, or any place on the record depending on how it's set up. Again...for my cartridge Benz Ebony LP, and my VPI tonearm...10.5i, no anti-skate sounds best to my ears.