Experience With Linear Tracking Turntables

P.S.  Last year our plumber rewired our whole house and did a first rate job.

@billstevenson 

It is the addition of excessive AS that can damage a cantilever. 

That is my point. In most cases I see too much.

@billstevenson 

The incidence rate of damage has gone down in recent years in my experience as more MC cartridges have come into vogue. 

Not necessarily. If you work with cartridge manufacturers and rebuilders a lot, as I have, they can see uneven wear on the stylus within a few months from new. It may not be discernible for some, but it is real.

dover, the antiskate setting on Technics turntables is ~10% of VTF according to their specifications.  I believe most other reputable companies are calibrating in a similar manner.  VPI recommends no antiskate at all.  A view that I once viewed with doubt, but have more recently grown more comfortable with.  That covers most of the cases I see, and I see a lot of TTs.  As lewm correctly pointed out, there is no way to actually measure the amount of AS force being applied in most cases.  I can measure the effect of the applied force by using AnalogMagik to measure resultant distortion. 

You are assuming that the calibration of the AS dial is equivalent to the grams you are tracking at.  Do you really think that setting the AS dial to 2 means that 2 grams of lateral force is being applied?

I am giving the tonearm manufacturers credit for understanding a little about setting their product correctly.  Equating the numerical values of VTF and AS makes it easy for anybody to set AS.

That being said, I have no problem adjusting outside the numerical dial numbers.

The forum members here delve very deeply into things like this and may be more accurate than the manufacturer's instructions, but a rule-of-thumb is necessary which can be applied by the consumer,. whomever they be.

Bill