Ditching anti-skate?

This is from a recent technical paper at Vinyl Engine."From discussions on web forums it becomes evident that some people think that skating force is zero when the tracking error is equal to zero, as it is the case in the
null points. This is true only for linear tracking arms, for pivoted arms this simply not correct. As long as the line connecting the stylus tip to the arm pivot is not
tangential to the groove at the contact point, which is always the case for pivoted arms, a skating force is generated. For that very reason tangential pivoted arms like the Garrard Zero and the Thales still have anti-skating mechanisms."
The poster wrote a quite detailed technical paper about this and I have no reason to disbelieve him.

Yes,if an anti-skate mechanism does not do a good job it might sound better without and you might be saving some record wear.But Klaus Rampelmann in his paper points out that a stylus will not be properly centered in a groove technically until you correct for the anti-skate.Klaus states "Uncompensated skating force results
actually in the stylus mistracking the outer groove wall which results in distortion in the right channel." He goes on to say that you reduce record wear using anti-skate because trackability is improved by 20-25%.This would require an equivalent 50% increase in tracking force,thus affecting the sound generally and the record wear etc.From personal experience I know that VTF and anti-skate are inter-twined and that if you change one you have to change the other in a set-up and I think that if the anti-skate changes so audibly across a record by rights you would be forced to be changing VTF all the time as well.Now here is where the argument about the audible "badness" of using anti-skate might collapse.Klaus considered the arguments and was moved to write his excellent paper,I can only suggest you check it out in the members section at The Vinyl Engine.

It seems to me that it is necessary to always adjust VTF in relation to anti-skate firstly.Now a lot of people here seem to be the "set and forget" types.I found that I wanted to investigate anti-skate more after reaching the point a lot of you are at now,where the use of it was worse sounding than none at all.So aided by the use of the "on-the-fly" TWL weight mod and the ability of my "tweaked" Rega arm to be "voiced" with the plinth by adjusting the fixing nut tension (tonearm also bearing),I discovered the glories of correct anti-skate and weight for each single record I play.The VTA set correctly as well.Anti-Skate set right,is the correct parameter to adjust for everything to snap into focus.Pragmatically speaking, this is the route I had to go and I will not go back now,it is very good.Some of you may well be limited by how much and finely you can adjust your tonearm.It took me a lot of iteration to discover anti-skate.I can state that categorically that it is worse without correct anti-skate all other things being equal.

Lloyd Walker of Walker Tables has a set-up faq on his site that recommends playing an album to first warm-up your system(there's the 40 minutes)before you fine-tune.That's what's considered normal in his regime.Plan on spending some time listening.You get used to doing it and it's actually fun!