Are you using anti-skating or not

>>but you will need to use a higher-than-optimum VTF or you must tolerate occasional mistracking.<<

Wrong.

I use no anti-skating with any combination of 5 tonearms and 14 cartridges.

Don't need excessive VTF and there is no mis-tracking.

However, you do need a very precise alignment. This is critical.

>>Audiofeil...Evidently your cartridges work OK with non-vertical VTF<<

No, evidently you are wrong about the necessity of anti-skating.

One good reason is that some people think AS necessary because their gear won't track those stupid test records without it.

In actuality amplitudes found on test records are seldom, if ever, found on every day vinyl. In this regard, test records are useless. However, many of the other tracks can be helpful.

Alignment is really the key. With today's sophisticated stylus shapes and excellent tonearms, anti-skating is an afterthought IMO.

I'm saying that based on my equipment, which is reasonably high quality and precisely aligned, I find AS contributes nothing positive to vinyl playback.

A blanket statement such as "AS is never needed" would be foolish. Given the permutation of tonearm/cartridge combinations, I'd bet you'll find some that benefit from AS.

YMMV