Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

Dover.

For the sake of brevity I left the word "vertical" of the tracking angle. Pretty sure that this adjustment is applicable to a linear arm.
My point was...if the spindle is NOT parallel with the platter, the VTA will change as the arm moves across the record.

Bigalt.

Agree 100% a level platter and a level spindle go hand in hand. Perhaps I misinterpreted your earlier post. I took it to read that you make this adjustment from time to time. Assuming that the plinth is not in some way distorting over time, I would expect this adjustment to be a set and forget one. Thereafter any shift in level of the whole TT system, say with seasonal movement of the floor/wall, would be corrected by re-levelling the whole TT.

If the record is perfectly level then I don't see how my method would take the spindle out of level with the record surface but would make sure the spindle was level with the record. If the record is level the stylus should drift in or out out if the spindle isn't level. If the spindle is parallel with the record surface but the platter and record surface isn't level I believe that this would cause the stylus to drift in or out depending whether the spindle was higher or lower than the edge of the platter.

Bigalt,

What you want to do is put a straight edge on top of your platter, parallel with the tonearm spindle. Then, adjust the tonearm so the spindle is perfectly parallel with the straight edge. Just use your eyes. You may have to play with the lighting on the straight edge (use a flashlight at different angles) until you can see both the top of the straight edge and top of the spindle. This will get the spindle much more parallel to the platter than any other method. Most levels, digital protractors, etc. are not accurate at all. Now, do not ever touch the adjustment screws on the post. Once the spindle is parallel with the platter it will never need to be touched. Now all you do is simply level the TT until tonearm does not drift in or out.

The problem with your method is that you do not know that your platter is perfectly level to begin with. Care to share how you are determing that?

Bigalt,

Another problem with your method is that, because the post adjustment has three screws, when you are "leveling" the tonearm as you do, you are also messing with how vertical the post is. It should be perpendicular with the TT platter when viewed from the front of the TT. These parameters need to be set up and locked in. It's not something that you should ever adjust, unless you feel that they might have went out of adjustment over time.

Ketchup.

I too use your method.
If you backlight the spindle, it is possible to get a very accurate indication of when the platter and spindle are parallel. This, since you can adjust the arm such that the light evenly breaks through the gap.

Cheers.