Is this madness. TT question

I just got the Pro-ject today, and it is indeed a lovely sounding deck, but that's for another time. The Pro-ject arms use a weight over a pulley system to set the bias (anti-skate they're the same are they not?) Now I couldn't get the bloody arm to stay still with it connected, so I took it off, and subjected it to the full whack of Hi-fi news test tracks, and only on the very last one was there any problem, and then it was still able to play it, but with just a hint of distortion, all my other decks spat the dummy out at this point in time. Does this mean I don't need the anti-skate thingummy, or am I barking up completely the wrong tree.
If I have to have it on, Pro-ject 9 arm users how the #+?! do I get the arm to stay still when I'm cuing and lifting off?

 

I'd leave it off, if it works, it works. Do you have an antiskate test track (I don't know the Hifi news one) its an uncut track, your meant to get the stylus to stay in the middle. As long as the arm doesn't snap off towards the middle too quickly I'd say leave it. I ran my old rega without bias, sounded better that way (although I'm not sure it was actually possible to run the rega entirely without bias, magnets and all).
Does seem odd though.

 

I took the weight off on mine. Even on minimum anti-skate settings it used to jump inwards at the minimum provocation. Good as gold now.

If it works well I'd say leave it too.