Best tonearm position for VTA?

Dan ed--I never mean to be condescending in my posts,and only mean to (when I can)be helpful.Maybe save some of you some time and wasted effort.My whole basic intent,after having,myself,tried every "CHACHKA" the hobby has to offer,was to stress that alot of the extraneous DO-DADS aren't really that important.The playing cards are fine,but,you won't have to fotz aroud "A THOUSAND TIMES" by simply dialing in very small changes and listening for them.

I and my friends do this constantly during new listening sessions.Without trepidation,and we always gain new insight.Sometimes something new and unrelated pops up.That being said,the "CARD" thing is a good idea,but as you gain experience with your stuff you won't have to rely on any additional gizmo's because you will know your stuff really well from "hands on" experience.

Speedy, I didn't take it that way, and you're post are extremely helpful to me. So please don't stop on my account. I just felt I needed to explain what I was about. It's pretty hard for me sometimes to get my thoughts across in written posts. (Wow, physical, vocal and facial expressions are really important!) Part of the reason I was looking for some method to use is that all of my analog front end is new to me, all of it coming in the last 6 to 9 months. I probably broke that rule about not changing too many things at once, but I gotta feed the beast.

I don't remember having this much problem with my old MMF 7, but then I only had the one cartridge for it. I had it dialed in pretty well and then pulled the arm to upgrade the wires and clips. Since I knew the position I could just return the arm there and be done. Right now it's not so easy cuz, as you say, I'm still learning and getting to know my stuff. I image if it had taken futzing with more than 4 or 5 cards I would have gotten frustrated and just done the gross movement thing. I think that's how I got messed up with the 103 in the first place. I'll get there before long.

Nsgarsh--I'll try to tone down my humor,now that I've copped a look at your "STUNNING" set-up!!Wouldn't want you to heave chunks of ungranulated Maxwell House at those gorgeous and "CLASSIC" Martin Logan panels!!

I have been messin with VTA adjustments for 21 years and I still mess around with it.
If your arm is an Allen set screw type, then the playing cards are "BRILLANT" you always need a reference to make baby steps..

I always thought the rule of thumb was designers of Tonearms and cartridge manufactures made their products to work together. when the vta is set properly the cartridge body is close to parallel to the record surface. So if you are way up or down, you are way off?

Presently my Shelter sounds best to me a little down in the back. This however is not as important to the sound for the Shelter anyway, as VTF.

Don't get me wrong both are important but for the Shelter you have to have the vtf right first, and remember the vtf changes with vta adjustments.


Peace
Ron

So I was bock over on VA last night and found a post that suggested weighing records and then making slight VTA adjustements based on the weight. I assume that the theory is that since the records are approximately the same surface area the weight differences must be due to the thickness differences. I haven't tried this but it seems to me that this is a crap shoot because it really depends on the cutting angle when the record was made. Maybe it will work sometime, and maybe even most of the time. The poster who proposed this was also careful to say that you still have to make the final evaluation by ear. What the poster was offering was a way to guestimate the VTA adjustment when one is experiementing with a record who's VTA setting has not been previously found. I'm not sure I'm ready to do the VTA adjustment for each record while fumbling with my playing cards. Maybe I'll try settings with a few normal weight records and then a few heavy weight records and just settle on a happy medium.