Tonearms with no anti-skate adjustment

williewonka

Anti-skate is reqired to counter the effect of the "drag" the stylus/cartridge exerts on the arm while playing a track.

That is mistaken. Anti-skate is used to compensate for a force that an offset pickup arm exerts that gives it a tendency to "skate" towards the spindle. That’s why true linear tracking arms don’t include anti-skate adjustment.

Some manufacturers discourage the use of anti-skating force, including some who include antiskate adjustments on their arms. VPI is one such example.

Opinions by audiophiles about the necessity of using anti-skate are divided. Surprise! The best approach is to decide for yourself. My preference is to use anti-skate, but in an amount much less than is typically indicated on a pickup arm.

Peter Lederman of Soundsmilth has looked at a lot more cartridges under a microscope than I have. He has said that no anti-skate, or incorrectly adjusted anti-skate causes visible wear that is uneven on stylii.

Then again, that arm was designed for low compliance cartridges tracking at high tracking forces, so if your conical Denon 103, or 102, is tracking at 2.5-3 grams the cartridge will probably wear out quickly enough to not make this an issue at all, the conical stylus being particularly well suited to being used without compensation.

If you hear a bit of mistraking add a tiny more VTF. (you can do that by slightly lowering the tail end).

stringreen

If you hear a bit of mistraking add a tiny more VTF. (you can do that by slightly lowering the tail end).

Are you confusing VTF with VTA?

Lowering the arm with reduce either one, so I think you're mistaken.

Thanks for all the input.  It sounds perfectly fine to me...no mistracking, no imbalance in the channels, no distortion that I've noticed.  But I should do some comparison listening tests in highly-modulated tracks using one of my other turntables, and see if I notice distortion in the left channel.

The Grace 704/714 tonearms did not come with anti-skate, so no parts are missing.  They are low-mass arms (6g from what I've researched), and stock pictures of them had F9s mounted, so I really think they are meant for high-compliance cartridges. @viridian Where did you see that they were designed for low-compliance?

@cleeds I saw as well how older VPI arms did not have anti-skate, and were also uni-pivots.  But Lederman notes in his anti-skate article (on SoundSmith's website) that VPI eventually added AS adjustment, probably at the behest of users.