Is my anti-skating too strong.

Inner grooves are the hardest part of the record for a cartridge to track because the groove modulations (wiggles) are compressed into a smaller diameter and become more extreme in shape.  Wrong antiskating can contribute to problems with tracking, so in that sense you could say they "cause" the problem.  When grooves are highly modulated more skating force is developed, and therefore, more antiskating would be desirable.  But, as Peter Ledermann points out, increasing antiskating to optimize high modulation playing would mean that, for the vast majority of the time (when modulation levels are lower), antiskating is set too high.  That is why he discourages using test records to set antiskating for equal distortion in both channels at high modulation levels.

@no_regrets, if the anti skating is off the distortion will occur in one channel or the other. If it is set too low the right channel will distort, too high and the left channel will distort. Having said this orchestral crescendos always occur at the end where the modulation is tightly packed and tracking error and it's significance increases fast. If the cartridge is not positioned correctly you can get distortion here. The cartridge may just be miss tracking because it is a poor performer or worn. It could be the record is damaged from play with a worn stylus. 

Can someone please confirm or correct my thinking.  If I occasionally hear distortion in the left channel on peaks, my anti-skate is set too high (too much force to the outside of the record).  I need to decrease the anti-skate to allow more force in the inside of the groove.  Is this correct?  I currently have it set to the same level as my tracking force.  Thank you.

Im with Ozzie on this one.  I track my Ortofon a hair heavier just for security, but it sounds better without a/s to me.

Tswisla

look at the second post that MC wrote and you will have your answer.