Does removing anti-skating really improve sound?

Mosler666
What if we disregard anti-skating and let the cantilever/tonearm free itself from external counter forces. Wouldn’t we be giving a chance for the cantilever/coils to stay centered and perhaps to do a better job?

Mosler666 et al 

If your pivot arm has a straight arm tube. (Disclaimer - not responsible for any accidents this causes).

Take an elastic band 6 - 8 inches in diameter and place it around your cartridge body. ***NOT THE CANTILEVER*** obviously.

Pull out straight from the tonearm base.

You will get a good understanding visually, and a feel, for what is called the Force Vector - fancy name for this vinyl skating phenomena.

Notice how the tonearm wants to go toward the spindle. See how the elastic band bends - it represents the cantilever.

Now, take your cartridge, and straighten it out on the straight armtube,  and try this again.

The Force Vector - Skating phenomena no longer exists.

The elastic band "pull" simulates the pull of the groove on the stylus.

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The skating inward phenomena is due to the offset position of the cartridge, and the fact the stylus point does not line up with the pivot point of the tonearm. That's the first reason.
  
The second reason is the overhang -discussed here already and elsewhere. Again force vectors exist which are not directly ahead of the stylus. The surface of the record is not moving straight ahead with respect to the stylus tip. This results in these force components directed ahead and toward the center of the record.

How much skating there is based on how big the overhang is.

IMO
Everybody is free to use antiskate or not use it. It's your cartridge and your records. I just feel that anyone selling a used cartridge that has not used antiskate, should say so in their Sales Ad - full disclosure.

At best, any compensation is just a rough average of the force that is required to compensate for skating forces, the actual skating force varies greatly due to different operating conditions.  In particular, there is more skating force when the stylus is tracking highly modulated grooves (loud passages).  Some people set anti-skating by playing test records with higher and higher levels of play and then use anti-skating to compensate for distortion appearing in one channel (if the right becomes distorted, increase anti-skating).  The problem with this approach is that it applies too much compensation for more typical playing conditions.

Even though playing a blank groove does not reproduce actual playing conditions, it is used as a rough proxy for methods where you set anti-skating to cause a very slow drift toward the spindle when playing a record near the end of the record.  This method has been endorsed by a number of stylus/cartridge manufacturers who know a thing or two about wear on the stylus.  I like this method because it is easy.  You don't even need a blank record.  Put the needle down in the run-out section of a playing record and watch which way it drifts before it catches the groove.  You can look up Peter Lederman's (Sound Smith) videos on the subject.

As to the persistent issue of what causes the skating force, it is caused by friction of the stylus playing the groove.  The direction of that force pulling on the cantilever is roughly 90 degrees from the line between the two sides of the stylus contacting the groove.  For the most part, that means that the force is pulling along the same direction as the cantilever itself.  If the arm were straight, with no offset angle, the pull will be against the arm pivot.  But, when the cartridge is set at an offset angle, the direction of pull is no longer toward the pivot.  I have a simple way to demonstrate this phenomenon.  Place your elbow on a table and hold your arm straight out and then pull your middle finger straight back.  Your arm will not move because there is no sideways force.  Now cock your wrist toward the right, like the offset angle of a tonearm.  If you pull straight back on the middle finger like before, your arm will swing to the right.  This is precisely what happens with your tonearm.

S-shaped arms are no different from other arms when it comes to skating force because the cantilever on the cartridge is not pointing at the pivot.  That shape was chosen to balance the weight of the arm at the pivot.   

@larryi 
would using something like gruv glide mitigate the issue of the pull towards the spindle due to lower friction? I’ve been using it without anti-skate to get the best possible sound. I’ve done a-b tests of same tracks with definitive enhancement of sound when no skating is present using my 2m bronze cartridge at 1.5g vtf. So maybe it’s something that’s table or cartridge related.

Yes, I would expect that lower friction would also mean lower skating force.  In any event, if it sounds better to you to not use the antiskating mechanism, you then only have to decide whether or not you are concerned with uneven groove and stylus wear.   Records are quite robust, so the issue of record wear might be more academic than a serious concern.  For me, it is enough of an issue that I use anti-skating.  In applying the Peter Lederman approach, with most arms, I end up using less anti-skating than applying the manufacturer's recommendations which are based on down-force setting.

If removing anti skating makes a vinyl playback system sound better then the setup is off somewhere. You can prove this to yourself with any good test record Like the HiFi News one. The anti skate adjust or Bias track has symmetrical test tones on both channels in increasing modulation.
The game is to adjust the anti skate until neither channel distorts at the highest groove velocity. Take the anti skate off and the right channel will start buzzing like mad. Too much anti skate and the left channel will start buzzing like mad. It helps to have continuously variable adjustment. If you do not then you can fine tune by adjusting the tracking force. You can get yourself in the ballpark by just keeping an eye on the cantilever as you lower the stylus into the groove. It should remain straight ahead. If it deviates one way or another you are way off. With no anti skating applied the cantilever deviates to the edge of the record causing misalignment of coils to magnets and taking the suspension out of it's linear region.