What the OP is describing has to do with setting up the tonearm. The AR XA/XB original tonearm is designed to float towards the spindle. The only adjustment you have is the counterweight on the back of the tonearm. Once you swap the original tonearm for a Jelco, Rega, Grace, etc, you will be able to set the anti-skate. I'm not sure if a modern tonearm will give you VTF adjustments.
Ancient AR Turntable with NO anti skate
A friend had me over to listen to his restored late 60's Acoustic Research turntable. While listening, I noticed that the somewhat awkward looking tonearm had no anti skate. Looking closely at the stylus assembly, it wasn't drifting or pulling toward the center spindle. It seemed to track clean and true through the entire LP. The arm is the original stock AR arm and couldn't be more that 8.5" or 9" in length. I am just curious how AR pulls that off with such a short arm? I have seen several 12" arms (Audio Technica for example) that dispense with anti skate completely but never a smaller one. By the way, the table sounded wonderful and the cartridge was a Denon 103R.
Thanks,
Norman
Thanks,
Norman