Anti skate and tonearm damping query


I have read a number of threads relating to both antiskating and tonearm damping on the JMW 9" Sig.arm and find myself a bit confused.......I have been experimenting a little and have reached the conclusion that I must be deaf. I have not used the additional antiskating system, I have tried twisting and not twisting the leno wire and can hear no difference. If the Leno wire is not twisted therefore no antiskate, will this damage the stylus or the album??
I have also filled the damping well above the taper to the base of the point and still cannot hear 'the music being sucked out' or indeed, an improvement. Do I fill the well up to the point!! and then work backwards. Those that finetune using the damping seem to have some sort of epiphany when the 'sweet' spot is reached.

Can someone please shed light on how I should be going about setting the AS and finetuning the damping on the arm. The table is a scoutmaster with super platter and sds, the cartridge is the dynavector Te Kaitora Rua

Thanks
wes4390
Thanks again for all of the comments.......much appreciated.

Tom,
When you set the vta was it done by sight i.e. with the lined card as suggested by vpi, or by ear after this and If you turn the vta wheel clockwise does this lower the arm? I am currently on my second Mint...the first one cracked as I was taking it off the platter spindle.
Skating force is a result of the offset of the polished area of the stylus in perspective of the groove wall. During the journey of the tonearm cross the record side this offset becomes zero 2 times - the zero tracking error point - and is depending on the tangential error angle (which changes all the time - becoming more and less again during the journey from and towards a zero error point).
Less derivation from tangential zero error = less skating force.
Skating force too is influenced by misalignment of the stylus in the groove and - to a VERY high degree - by the total contact area. Larger contact area (= modern line contact) is far less force on the groove wall with a given VTF as the skating is a by-result of VTF divided through contact area.

In summary:
- less derivation - offset - from tangential zero = less skating force.
- super precise vertical alignment of stylus in groove = lower skating force.
- larger contact area of stylus = lower skating force.
- old - conical or elliptical - stylus = higher skating force compared to line contact or similar.

MOST IMPORTANT: skating is NOT linear, but a force which gets higher, lower, zero and higher again.
Trying to compensate such a force with a linear anti-force is......... well....... no good idea.
"Correctly applied" anti-skating would fix the problem in 2 short moments of the record side and produce a new problem for most (98%...) of the rest.

Then there still is the (objective and empirical by observation ...) "fact" that most tonearm/cartridge- combo featuring very high VTF (2.5 grams +) do indeed produce LESS skating force .........

Thats why Ortofon did not care for antiskating at all in its 12" tonearms w/SPU cartridges and why my FR-66s runs smoothly w/ FR-7fspec. without any anti-skating.......
God bless America. Dertonarm has a right to express whatever ideas he feels are true ;-) and on any subject. Besides, they say laughter is the best medicine. So I say 'Good luck' to him!
Indeed - God bless america.
Especially so in our troubled times.
Thanks to him, that not all americans always go for the most simple model in everything......
In this sense - good luck to Nsgarch too.