MC cartridge loading: still baffled

Yogi, blank LP is not a good tool for setting AS. The skating force is due to the friction of the stylus as it passes over the vinyl in the groove. A blank LP by definition has no grooves. Therefore, it does not present the same friction related resistance to travel as does a real LP with grooves. This has been stated and restated over and over again on various forums.

While I agree with your conclusion, the number of falsehoods being stated on various forums as facts are as numerous as the grains of sand on a decently sized beach.

lewn,

The blank disc is NOT intended to simulate actual operating conditions.  From experience of many manufacturers and listeners, it gives a rough approximation of what the correct setting would be when playing actual records.  Like all antiskating measures, at best, one can only get a roughly correct setting--actual skating forces change dynamically during play (tends to be higher at high modulation levels) and this methodology is intended to roughly mimic the forces when playing records at average modulation levels.  I think SoundSmith has a video explaining this approach.  

I use to set antiskating using test records (like the Shure trackability test records) with music played at higher and higher levels and I would set the antiskating at a level that minimizes mis-tracking or cause the mis-tracking to be about equal in both channels, and then I would back off antiskating from this level just a bit to account for the fact that I never have records recorded at such high levels of modulation.  I now just use the blank record approach (much easier).

Dear @larryi  : 2+   lewm: 2-

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

Raul seems to be my personal critic, following me around on these pages to disagree or debunk what I might have written.  Raul notwithstanding, I have no problem with anyone setting AS any way they want to.  I was merely re-quoting a fact: blank LPs do not generate the friction force on the stylus tip that is generated by any LP with actual grooves encoding music.  This is not a truth that emanates only from me; others have also mentioned it.  Raul or anyone else can take that or leave it.  Nor do I dispute the fact that the skating force is constantly varying across the surface of an LP, largely in fact due to groove tortuosity and also to the constantly varying tracking angle error.  Thus, there is no such thing as one correct amount of AS, even for any one single LP.