Anti-skate setting question

[cgallery]

Nope, the blank groove method does not work. Stylus tip does not touch thr groove walls, thr blank disc method only sort of works with conical stylus. Elliptical, shibata micro ridge etc all have different contact area on thr sides of the tip and all will need different skate settings which cannot be determined with a blank disk. Also some tips like vdh are really sharp and dig into a blank disk giving a very false high antiskate needed to overcome.
Test record on thr middle modulation tracks is thr only way to set antiskate.
Chris

If we can agree that anti-skating is at best an approximation, this is like saying the blank vinyl method can't achieve an approximation.

But it can and does for many. Further tweeking by ear if there is audible distortion is helpful. Periodic checking of the stylus (with an inexpensive second-hand school microscope) will verify that one is in the correct neighborhood.