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Dialing in my analog rig - Need help

I took a giant leap forward in sound quality this past weekend after deciding to check the setup that was provided by the dealer. Hell, I watched him and thought he covered everything. I was largely unhappy with the sound of my newly acquired rig. I am now only slightly unhappy as I discovered the following.

Being that it was a used Turntable/cartridge with no manual I downloaded the manual and performed the following. What I found was that my cartridge was way out of alignment according to the jig provided by VPI. That was a painless fix I than checked the levelness of the tonearm as it pertains to the platter. What I found was that the tonearm was set (or never set) all the way at the bottom of its adjustment. Doh! So I cranked that up to "level with platter". Was that how former owner had it set? Then there was the alignment of the head shell and of course that was off too. Now I was on to the tracking force which I defaulted to slightly more than 2 grams. The gauge I have is kind of crude compared to what the dealer was using but then the dealer seemed to miss a few items anyway...

As I mentioned earlier in this post, although being very unhappy it has gotten a LOT better. Many smiles have practiced over the last few days but one thing that still plagues my setup is the graininess or lack of smooth sounding highs. It's detailed as hell but vocals still have a "grain" to them. Nice staging and a goodly amount of air. I just seem to lack the smoothness I thought would be natural to vinyl.

Setup is;
VPI Scoutmaster, Dynavector XXV Mark II which feeds a PS Audio GCPH phono stage then direct to a Pass Labs amp. MBL 121 speakers. No preamp yet - still looking.

What's next?
128x128desalvo55
stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,467 posts
 
Don't get the minifeet...get Bearpaws (vermontaudio.com). a major upgrade
dan_ed
2,451 posts
 
Many theorize that the differences heard with changing VTA on the fly are due to minute changes in VTF caused by raising and lowering of the pivot point and not due to fractions of a degree changes in the stylus angle. I don't know what is the correct answer and I am not overly sensitive to this so I don't spend a lot of time changing VTA once I find a good spot. I do, however, attempt to find the correct VTA change to make with LPs of different thicknesses but only in a general way. Not for each and every LP. If changing VTA for every LP works for you, go for it. If you try it and don't find it making much difference, don't sweat it. That's my opinion.
desalvo55's avatar
desalvo55 OP
257 posts
 
Thanks for the responses. I went back to check and raise the VTA on this arm. Boy did I find some trouble.

If VTA is relevant to the cartridge, and "looking" at the cartridge with my laser eyes, I decided to again raise the arm. Upon doing this the arm either got derailed or the adjustment took it off its pivot point. When I set the arm down the needle flattened. I lost it. I was sure I destroyed the cartridge. The needle looked ugly, flattened and off to one side. I told my wife I just destroyed a 2 thousand dollar cartridge. I then realized that the weight of the arm had severely altered. It took some time to figure out what had happened. It seemed that I had raised the arm sufficiently to bottom out the back of the arm to the adjuster. I had to lower the VTA to get things back to where I could adjust the tracking force correctly. The cartridge seems to have survived my ignorance. I haven't tried it yet. What a PIA. There's got to be a better way to adjust VTA on this arm.
stops
56 posts
 
Desalvo55:

There is a good way if you can see across the arm at a 3 X 4 index card that has lines. You need to draw a 4" line on one of the horizontal lines on the card (call it AC). Start at"A" end at "C". Then at the pivot end of the arm (point "C") you need a vertical line of 0.15" to be drawn (call this CD). Then connect point "A" to the top of this small vertical line (point D). You now have a 2 degree slope on the line. If you visually line up the arm (make it parallel), when it is placed on a NON ROTATING record with this line (card is on the record) by raising or lowering the arm you will have an SRA close to 92 degrees (optimum if everything is perfect) you can fine tune from there. Get the line as close to the arm as possible to avoid a viewing error. Take Care!!
stops
56 posts
 
Desalvo55: It should be a 3 by 5" card not a 3 by 4" card
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