antiskate disc

Yeah, the AR XA tonearm had many more flaws than merely the absence of AS. But Vilchur was an articulate and erudite defender of it.

Come to think of it, when the original AR XA was marketed (late 60s or early 70s), most of us were using very light weight, very low VTF MM or MI cartridges (e.g., Shure and ADC).  Low cartridge weight and low VTF make for a low skating force, compared to the modern era of high effective mass tonearms and low compliance cartridges that require higher VTF. So maybe that is why or how Vilchur could justify the absence of an AS device on his tonearm, which probably was really left out to reduce cost. Then there is my experience with the underhung Viv tonearm, which trades skating force (not compensated for but lower than for any overhung tonearm) for tracking angle error (higher than for any overhung tonearm), and does it quite nicely.

Say what you may about the low recommended VTF of Shure, ADC, and several other vintage cartridges, but the fact is they had very high compliance and tracked LPs just fine at the factory recommended VTF. It’s not logical to condemn low VTF per se unless you’re setting VTF below the recommended range.

And when a cartridge tracks well at low VTF, you get the added benefit of less skating force. 

Yogi, there are many factual errors in that video. Some are as follows:

He says that early tonearms did not need AS because VTF was very high for early ceramic cartridges. Wrong. The friction force is directly proportional to VTF. So high VTF means high force means there is a stronger skating force that needs to be corrected by AS, so far as that is possible.

He advises setting AS to a level on the AS adjuster equal to VTF. That’s usually way too much AS.

He uses a CD to demonstrate skating and the effect of AS to counteract skating. That’s ok for a demo, but one would never use a CD to set AS for playing vinyl LPs.

There’s more, but why bother? I advise anyone who needs advice on AS to ignore that video.

The skating force exists because of friction between the stylus contact patches and the groove walls.  Blank LPs don't have grooves, obviously.  So a blank LP is not a really good model for creating a skating force and then correcting it with AS. I know that some gurus do use a blank LP. I strongly disagree with that method for the reason given. Your observation that the stylus scratches the blank vinyl is neither here nor there.

Here’s what I do, and I don’t claim it’s the only way to end up with an effective amount of AS. (There is NO exact correct setting.) Play a stereo LP with music and set AS to zero. The result should be some audible distortion in the R channel. Now add AS in very tiny increments starting way below the recommended amount, if there even is such a value. As you add AS, listen to the same passage. When the distortion in the R channel is ameliorated, stop.