Mint LP a no go – now what?

>>What makes you think the VPI jig is in some way deficient?<<

It's not deficient.

But the Mint LP is far more accurate.

I have several (well many) of them and not a single tonearm manufacturer's jig/gauge/template has been as precise.

Some of these tonearms are very highly regarded in the audio world.

Dealer disclaimer.

Stew3859-
I believe the VPI jig is meant to be easy. The Mint takes patience to get it just right. Very worth the effort IMHO.

Talk with Steve at 'The Analog Dept.'

http://www.theanalogdept.com/

He made me a very nice arc protractor for my 12.5 after I, too, failed to get one from Mint (though at some point I hope Mint can do one for me). Not made to the same standards as the Mint, but still very good, and let's just say that the price was right. My review of it can be seen at the Oswald's Mill site.

The sound is night and day different than with the VPI jig, and by that I mean night and day better. Sorry Audifeil, I think the VPI jig *is* deficient, and HW should reconsider his setup parameters. Perhaps the jig is designed for ease of use, as Srwooten says, but if so, I'll take accuracy and sonics any day as a trade off for putting in the labor necessary to make it right.

Steve's work well too!! wasn't sure if he was making them a public offering yet but I would check him out too. Ken's are really nice in that they have 4 different geometries on them.

To put things into perspective, I've found the card-stock protractors that I print to scale on a laser printer to be far superior to any two point protractor I've used.

A wonderful tool like the Mint will get you the last 10%, but treat it like icing on the cake if you will.

It's been quite some time since I handled a JMW tonearm. Doesn't it provide for fine-tuning the pivot to spindle distance in the manner that the Schroeder Reference does?

My memory may have faded in this regard. Assuming that this is the problem (no easily adjustable pivot to spindle distance), you'll need a means of either accurately measuring p-s or alternatively getting this number from VPI.

Once you've established the pivot to spindle distance, you'll need to work backwards to establish the desired effective length.

Use the Ellison spreadsheet on the Enjoy the Music website (there's a link to it on my support page). Set the decimal precision to 3 decimal places (I'm nuts, so I set it to 4).

Iteratively plug in different effective lengths until you arrive at a pivot to spindle distance that VPI tells you they use (or the one you have measured).

I'll run into situations where someone has a fixed mount arm which is not easily changed, and this is how I solve the problem.

Once you arrive at the Baerwaald predicted effective length (that yields the VPI provided pivot to spindle distance), you can use the procedure I mention above to measure your effective length.

You want to see if it is close enough to Baerwaald to trust (remember, you have headshell slots to compensate).

If it is not in agreement, then VPI has either misdrilled your 'table or they are not using a Baerwaald. Even if they use a proprietary alignment, you at a minimum deserve a yes/no answer as to whether they use Baerwaald or Loefgren from VPI. These are not state secrets.

If you can't get the numbers to agree, then your only option is to move the arm mount, by using your measured effective length to derive the new pivot to spindle distance according to the Baerwaald equations.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier