Your choice to use the sonically-based setting is correct. A grooveless LP adjustment cannot take into consideration the velocity forces encountered by the stylus in the groove of a actual LP. To confuse this issue even more, the azimuth and tracking force of the cartridge will also alter the anti-skate setting. Even the thickness differences of your test LP and the grooveless LP could be part of the adjustment difference. You should try using real music, something you really love. If the setting you have arrived at from the HINews LP still sounds like the correct adjustment, great! If not, go with what produces the most accurate channel balance and imaging, combined with clear top end and bass on the music you are most familiar with.
Anti-skating question
I recently installed a new phono cartridge (DynaVector 10x4 MkII on Origin Live modified Rega RB250 on Planar 3 table). At first, I set the anti-skating force so that on a spinning grooveless record surface the tonearm would pretty much stay where it was set down or drift slowly outward. That, I assumed, was a pretty good and direct way to set the level of anti-skating force needed. Then, I put on HiFiNews&RecordReview’s test LP and used the anti-skating tracks – basically, you adjust the anti-skating until you hear no tracking distortion of the test signal in either channel. This procedure gave me a very different setting – one that does not counter (not nearly totally, anyway) the inward skating of the tonearm when set on a grooveless record surface. I would have thought the two methods would have produced more similar results. Any explanation for this? (I’ve stuck with the sonically-based setting for now.)