Tonearms with no anti-skate adjustment

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.

Anti-skate is very important. I would stay away from cheap tobearms which omit this feature. 

And what of expensive tonearms that omit anti-skate like the Schick. Are those better?

I owned a 714 and it worked best with low compliance cartridges, for me. The 704, 727 and 747 mated best with the F9e, etc. IMHO. So I did not see it anywhere; I was an owner. All of the repeated info on the effective mass of the arm seems to originate here:

http://www.fl-electronic.de/analog/tonarme.html

The internet seems to merely echo unsubstantiated claims until they are no longer questioned.

But for a moment, let’s give that low effective mass number credence. I’m with Mr. Lederman. Your Shure V15 V , or other light tracking, high compliance cartridge, may not show signs of overt mistracking in an arm sans anti-skating, but the wear characteristic on the stylus will be uneven. I believe this also implies that groove wear will also be uneven as vinyl is softer than diamond. Audio is a thousand different religions. Pick yours.