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tonearms with VTA-towers for true "VTAF"

Hi All,
I think the time has come to look at some more 'advanced' tone-arms that sport VTA towers. ('Old skool' is getting us not much further with this, or?))

During a lot of other, related postings it seems a good subject, I think.

Our experts, all might agree, that:

1) If you want to push the envelope for BEST possible replay, constant VTA 'adaptation' is an unavoidable matter. (nobody said madness :-)

2) I understand this means a TOP cart, inevitably with a 'most modern' type Fine-Line contact stylus, forget elliptical or can one even mention the word, spherical?

Add some TOP cantilever materials like:
- Beryllium (hard to get, as it is a very tricky material to work with i.e. very poisonous in powder form),
- Boron (which mostly has replaced the former),
- Titanium?? (was used by some of the better AT carts),
- Ruby, well some like it I hear,
- Sapphire?? (some one liked that better then Ruby, but VERY little seems about),
- Diamond (see e.g. the DV odd-ball 17D3), etc.

This should make for some VERY detailed and revealing reproduction (even in an MM cart), add to this the most revealing ingredients of a TOP LO-MC.

The end result is, that you can now here some marvellous detail (carved-outness of images, stage-depth -width, and on), B U T ONLY if your VTA is at its VERY closest to what the record was cut to! (Else you find your cart, record, arm, phono-pre, .... system sux :-)

More interesting yet, even the same vinyl brands have not always used the same cutting angles (over time). Anything from just under 20deg. to about 25deg. is what we find!

Next, these high res. styli also have each one their own preferred SRA / VTA angles, i.e. the stylus line-ridge related to the cantilever is a variable too.

Add this all up and you have a problem, particularly if you care for truly top play-back.

If you have a "VTA tower" it only seem to take 15sec. to change to the correct, previously found VTA, you do need to be organised though. If you want some know-how, Doug can tell, see also the discussion under:
"VTA setting for 'parabolic' and 'elliptical' styli"
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1244713018

There we have mentioned 3 current contenders, I quote: "Graham, VPI, TriPlanar plus a few very costly linear trackers..."

WHAT ABOUT THE: Kuzma 4Point?!

If I wouldn't like e.g.:
- multiple added connections (Graham, 7 in total?)
- wobbly Unipivots (VPI)
- too many fiddly pieces to make up the arm (TriPlanar)
- air bearings, or worse yet 'electronic' arm-feed

If I'd have an issue with these, I've no working solution to the VTAF I'd be looking for.

What say you?

Greetings,
Axel

axelwahl
larryi
3,993 posts
 
I certainly hope that overhang changes from minute VTA/SRA adjustment is primarily and academic issue and not a practical one. Viewing this purely from an academic/theoretical perspective, an arm, like the ET2 that changes overhang to account for a change in arm height would NOT necessarily be a good thing. If I were trying to maintain a particular VTA/SRA, I would set the overhang to be correct for that particular setting. I would then only change the height of the arm to account for different thickness of the records, while hopefully maintaining the same VTA/SRA. That would mean I would want the arm to go straight up and down and I would NOT want it to alter the overhang to account for a different height of the arm.

Personally, I never bother to change arm height for different thicknesses of records (I own a conventional, 9" arm). But, the resulting change in VTA/SRA from a change in thickness is considerably greater with the much shorter linear tracking arms so it might make sense to adjust the height with such arms for different record thicknesses. In that case, I think it would make more sense to just move the arm straight up and down and NOT attempt to compensate for a change in height. I don't think the ET2 arrangement makes sense from either a theoretical or practical perspective.
dover
2,244 posts
 
Larryi -y
You misunderstand how the ET2 works. The Eminent Technology is a linear tracking arm. On the ET2 if you adjust VTA the overhang does not change. It remains correct at all settings. It is the only arm that accomplishes this. This is about as perfect an arm as you will find if you worry about alignment - it has 0 tracking angle, no anti skate requirement, azimuth adjustment is built in as is overhang adjustment. Furthermore the patented decoupled counterweight system is tuneable to optimise the performance for cartridges of varying compliances.
Ag insider logo xs@2x
cleeds
5,951 posts
 
"Dover's point about the ET2 continuously adjusting to keep constant p-to-s distance as the record plays seems unique and rarely discussed. That' s all I'm saying.

Sorry, Sbank, I'd misunderstood your point. Thanks for clarifying!
fleib
1,124 posts
 
Larryi,
Good point. If you're only compensating for a thicker record the goal is to maintain the same SRA/alignment, and the change in overhang is incorrect.

In this case there is no change of distance vertically between the record surface and pivot. Both should be changed equally. The ET2 compensation is only correct for changing SRA of records of the same thickness. We live in an imperfect world.

Regards,
halcro's avatar
halcro
2,664 posts
 
Larry's point is valid....but instead of talking theory, let's talk real numbers.
On even the shortest 9" tonearm, if one raises the VTA by 2mm it changes the overhang by 0.008mm.
If one raises the VTA by 5mm it changes the overhang by 0.05mm.
Does anyone here seriously claim that they can adjust overhang to this degree of accuracy? 👀
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