Tonearms without anti-skate, damage to records?

dogberry, How do you know that you are setting AS to "half of VTF"? You can know the VTF in grams very precisely, but how do you know the AS force at the headshell, where the skating force is manifested? For me, that is where we are blinded unless Mijostyn will loan us his home made tool or we buy the Wally version.

True, all I can do is twiddle the dial as made and calibrated by SME, or the slider in the case of Rega. I use two arms from each, and setting them up this way conforms to PL’s method.

Going by sound alone, I’d say that this setting or even less is the best. It’s a night and day difference for the Decca, which comes to life with little or no AS force. But as always, I’m judging on sound quality alone, as having but one ear, I don’t do stereo, imaging, soundstaging and other (to me) imaginary concepts.

@lewm , my home made tool did not work well in the end. I could not get reliable readings out of it. I opted for a Wallyskater as the most reliable way to get into the AS ballpark and have found by all accounts 9-11% is correct. Three methods actually agree with each other. The least reliably accurate is the Frank Schroder/ Peter Ledermann slow fade to the inside in the runout groove area. Next is the Jonathan Carr cantilever observation method which when used with magnification is surprisingly accurate and finally the Wallyskater which will give you a perfectly straight cantilever everytime without any dependency on observational astuteness.  

@rauliruegas , The skating force exists within a range dependant most on VTF. It is never close to zero and never beyond a certain degree. It is getting within the middle of that range which is important. When severely off as with no AS at all record wear on the left channel and that side of the stylus is greatly increased, the cantilever can be permanently deflected to the opposite side and mistraking occurs early in the right channel. You can demonstrate this with almost any test record. My friend's Spectral cartridge had the cantilever permanently bent to the left side by chronically too much AS and this will lead to early mistracking in the left channel again easy to demonstrate and accelerated wear on the right channel groove wall.  Other than mistracking whether or not you can hear any of this is a question I can not answer. My own inclination is that if you are listening to the right characteristics, you can. Before mistracking and increased wear occur cantilever deflection causes asymmetry in the alignment of the coils in the magnetic gap. If the magnetic structure was designed properly the field intensity should remain the same anywhere within the gap but the field lines will change. As a psychological issue I am happiest when symmetry is maintained. When I am happy my system, which is currently in shambles, sounds better. 

@clearthinker , ahmen.

The US is much younger than Europe and our immaturity frequently sends us into these unpredictable spasms like the 18th amendment. We'll come around, but the sane minds that will have to prevent WW 3 will be European. As the musical prophet Eric Dolphy would say, at this moment we are "Out to Lunch." 

Dear @mijostyn : Due what you posted in this and other threads like the one thread you just posted I think that you are in the audio periodtime to fine tune your room/system and I already past that audio period/time with my room system years ago when I attended to a live concert seated at near field position and if I had the LP/CD of that concert that same nigth I compared the recording against what I just listened, not any more.

From some time now I’m centered to just enjoy MUSIC, all what you posted in your thread already gone for me.

Anyway, this last weekend I make a cartridges check-up ( I make time to time quick room/system check ups. ) around 10 of the cartridges that normally are in rotation, some vitge/today, and check its cantilevers and ( not a surprise for me ) all are just straigth even that I have some years with out AS.

I choose 4 of them to test it using the Telarc 1812 LP that’s all over the Overture  just demanding and " fortunatelly " with no single mistracking that I could be aware but one of the cartridges that had a tiny mistracking in the last cannon shot at the end of the score abut this last shot is a true obstacule/wall to almost any cartridge. So , I’m fine whith out that " distress " set up the " rigth " AS that just does not exist.

Btw, you have not to much time that you discovery the JC test for the AS. I do it and did it at least for the last 15+ years and never had the opportunity to read JC advise that's just common sense.

R.