Tonearms with no anti-skate adjustment

Dover, I disagree.

Moonglum, Just to clear up a basic point in our discussion, I think/thought that originally you were claiming that LOWERING the pivot point would.... etc.  But in your last post, you are talking about RAISING the pivot point.  In the latter case, the set VTF will go up, because your shoving more of the total mass onto the cantilever/stylus which must support it.  So, to summarize my position, move pivot point down in the vertical direction and the set VTF goes down.  Move pivot point up in the vertical, and the set VTF goes up.  And this is for a static balanced tonearm.  For a dynamically balanced tonearm, one with springs, etc, to set VTF, the effect is largely obviated.

A very simple analogy is to think of two guys carrying a sofa up a staircase.  Which guy is bearing most of the weight?  The guy on the bottom.

Testpilot, You wrote, "Any adjustment to the vertical position of the pivot that results in the pivot interface and the stylus/record not being inline will result in a lowered measured force."  I don't know what the phrase "pivot inteface and the stylus/record not being in line" means, but I do believe that moving the pivot down vs up does not have the same effect on VTF.  Maybe if I better understood your lingo, I would agree.

Moonglum, In your model using a balance scale, the restorative force is gravity, acting to restore equilibrium once you remove the upgoing force you applied in order to raise the pan on one side.  At the starting point, where the two pans are level with each other in the same plane, gravity exerts an equal force on both pans, because they are equal in weight or mass.  So equilibrium is reached when the pans are level with each other.  Your upgoing force is tantamount to reducing the mass on the side that it is applied.  It is a momentary force opposing gravity. A tonearm is not entirely analogous to a balance scale, because it is supported at TWO points, at the pivot and at the stylus.  The stylus exerts an upward force on the tonearm equal to VTF. When you mess around with the vertical position of the pivot point and change nothing else, there has to be a shift in the fraction of the mass that is supported by the stylus (=VTF), vs that which is counterbalanced by the counter-weight, which can only exert a fixed downward force equal to the effect of gravity upon it.  The change in VTF is usually small, I admit, for the usual very small changes in VTA that one is trying to achieve.

The balance scale model is flawed as a model for a tonearm.

Maybe Schick was thinking about the fact that for longer tonearms, the tracking angle error due to non-tangency of the cantilever to the groove is less on average than for a "shorter" tonearm, all other things being equal.  But you still have headshell offset angle, and as we know, any error in setting up a long tonearm is magnified such that the resulting increase in tracking angle error can be worse than that of a "short" (9-inch) tonearm.  (We're all tilting at windmills in my opinion, because it is rare indeed to have any tonearm that is "perfectly" set up.)

 Moonglum, are you going to take your marbles and go home? I am very interested in your hypothesis. Please explain in more words. I am willing to be convinced. First of all, I want to be sure what you are saying. Are you saying that there will be no effect on vertical tracking force if you lower the pivot point of the tonearm? Or are you saying that vertical tracking force will go up? Also, if you can explain more thoroughly what you mean by a “restorative force” that would help.

Cleeds is correct. VTF goes down if the pivot point is moved down.
Also,  The skating force is due to the friction of the stylus in the groove. Therefore the magnitude of the skating force will vary based on the stylus shape, the degree of tracking angle error, the headshell offset angle, and the modulations in the groove wall. This is why no one value of anti-skate force will be absolutely correct across the surface of any LP. It’s a moving target.

Any tonearm which is designed to be mounted so that the stylus tip overhangs the spindle will develop a skating force at all points across the surface of the LP. There are no exceptions. Therefore to say that some tone arms do not need anti-skate is to me a bit of self deception. If you cannot hear the effect of the absence of anti-skate, nevertheless there is a skating force. And that force can result in aberrant wear on the stylus.