Does removing anti-skating really improve sound?

@Slaw

@ct0517 ,

It seems the quote from the VPI manual makes my point. A complete turn either way gives way too much counterforce to be useful.

I should have mentioned I use the string/weight anti-skate VPI provides.

Slaw
When I owned the 12 inch VPI JMW tonearm I found the stock wiring of the arm with no turn to provide sufficient push back outward - This was due to the shape, firmness, pliability of the wire - as can be seen in this link, one of my setups from years gone by.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/KU9PAai5CX8bnfJ87

I agree doing a complete turn of the wire is not useful, way to much force, but still I could not figure out why VPI added the complexity of the string/weight, in later years, other than for marketing and demands from audiophiles. Some, maybe, who just did not understand the anti skating nature of the wire itself. 

Maybe this is a developed bias from my boating/fishing hobby, but my personal opinion is that a "Weight On A String" is a designer - manufacturer "Cop Out" - on a multi buck tonearm. My Dyna has one *^(

The slickest, best anti skate I experienced was on my Fidelity Research FR64s. Those that own that arm know what I am talking about.

Larry. Thx for your input. The paper you cite is interesting. But I guess I pay more attention than you did to the first paragraph, with all its qualifications. It clearly states that the phenomenon exhibited by the experiments done for this paper might be restricted to deformable objects such as a tennis ball. The data and the paper don’t convince me that I am completely wrong. Have you or has anyone noticed an increase in skating force when playing 45 RPM records.? I have not. Now I will go ahead and read the rest of the paper. Perhaps it will change my mind. The question here is whether a diamond stylus tip and a vinyl record groove would behave classically, as described by da Vinci and coulomb, or surprisingly as did the objects used in this particular paper. I obviously enjoy these debates. Which is one reason I am sticking to my guns. For now.

By the way, stiction doesn’t count. We are talking strictly about kinetic friction, not the friction force that pertains when one is setting a stationary object into motion with respect to a surface with which it is in contact.

A very rough experiment could be done with a blank record.  One could set anti-skating so that the arm stays roughly in place at a certain radius for 33.33 rpm, and then set the stylus down at the same point when playing a 45 rpm record.  If the stylus now moves decisively inward at 45 rpm, friction has increased with the increased velocity.

For goodness sakes, even 4 years later, kinetic friction is not affected by velocity, because the equation that defines kinetic friction has no term in it for velocity. You can't change the definition or the equation that constitutes the definition, to suit your needs.  And the above experiment, using a blank LP, is totally useless.