VTA?


I have a vintage Pioneer TT (PL-530) using a Grado Gold MM cart. The cart was installed by a dealer and performance has been acceptable. But, I am one to fuss about minor details. I have confirmed cartridge alignment (protractor) and tracking force with a TF gauge. The Pioneer table requires an overhang setting of 49 mm. Done that.

I am somewhat confused about adjusting the VTA. Seems that it can come down pretty much to trial and error until a preferred performance is obtained. And, VTA is most commonly performed by an arm elevation adjustment. The Pioneer has no such adjustment.

Am I just being too fussy about this factor since the Pioneer is nowhere near the sophistication and capabilities of more modern and expensive machines?

jrpnde
If you have great eye sight and can see the angle of the stylus when it’s on the record, does it seem to be @ 92°? If not try to figure out how much the arm assembly should be raised to get there. (Asumming it needs to be raised). If so. make a shim to put under your arm mount assembly.

If it needs to be lowered, make an appropriate shim out of graphite or carbon fiber to put between the cart and headshell.

www.mcmastercarr.com 

lots of good tables lack arm pivot height adjustment to help set a good SRA

just have to use shims/spacers ... or worse case, switch carts to have one with proper setup
VTA is one of those things where if your arm makes adjustment on the fly convenient accurate and repeatable, and if you're a keen listener with a lot of patience, and time, then with enough effort you can learn to hear and appreciate when its perfectly dialed in. Unfortunately having done this the next thing you will notice is its slightly different from record to record. There's no real correlation with how thick or anything either. All you can do is listen. 

Was at an audio meeting one time where not a single one of the 20+ there had the slightest clue about how to do this. In fact their suggestions were laughably off. So given you don't have the arm I would just relax and enjoy it. Otherwise you are looking at shims and a huge effort to make any difference and whatever you do will be obscured by the fact that shimming the cart is messing with vibration control which depending on how its done may swamp any VTA changes you might hear.  

Time and money will be much better spent on springs, sand box, fO.q tape, PHT, and other stuff that will make a much more obvious improvement.
I prefer to get everything set up correctly before I start messing with tweaks