Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

Hi Harry -see if this helps

Find your thickest and thinnest records that represent extremes. Leave armwand in the top hole of the joint. Since your VTA is already at the high point, leave it there and use the thickest record sample first. Adjust the post height so the Air Bearing Manifold scribed line is in line with the thick record. Adjust cart.

Then put on the thinnest record. You now have the full VTA travel to adjust for it. Does that help ?

This can be done in reverse with the thinnest record and VTA set at the low point.

Note: if you need some extra overall height an easy thing to do is to swap out the 3 leveling spikes (grub screws) on the mounting base for longer ones. Also - The aluminum base is much heaver than the CF, very solid, no way of cracking it, but has the same dimensions.

Chris

Harry, I don’t know if you have the thicker arm board that VPI made for the HW19 Mark IV to address the very issue you are having. If you don’t, they may be able to make one up for you. When I purchased the thicker platter for my HW19 years ago and before I got the thicker acrylic armboard my solution to the problem was to put washers between the metal subchassis and the underside of the regular armboard (or thicker one, if that is what you have and you still need more height) with the bolts going through them to raise the arm board to the desired height. Good luck.

Re/ VTA & gooseneck range not high enough: Having a BSc in audiophilia nervosa including a MSc in empirical material testing... :-)
I'd propose a surprisingly crude idea, which might work better than it should. Have a carpenter (or your right hand :-) make a wedge formed piece of wood - good sounding wood like solid fir or similar, or maybe also birch plywood. The wedge is placed between the ETs headshell (doesn't need to protrude from the wand) and the cartridge, covering not more than the interface between your cartridge and the arm wand. The wedge corrects for the back tilt angle of the arm if the manifold and gooseneck are in middle & correct positions. Maybe the wedge is 2mm front and 4.5mm back - make a drawing and calculate the height correction.
You could glue the wedge to the cartridge with a bit of white glue / elmers glue which doesn't hold to metal all too well. This makes an easily breakable connection. The other side (either to the arm or to the cartridge) uses screws - or maybe even thin double stick tape. *Not* having a totally rigid connection with natural materials in the "mechanical loop" often sounds more natural.

-Lots of choices here. I'm not the expert on this, but if I owned the VPI table, I would call VPI and get a thicker armboard -metal if there is one. The adjustment feet on the base tend to dig into wood and loosen over time. On my SOTA, the armboard is a aluminum acrylic laminate with metal adjustable pods where the base feet are located. Too much info, huh?
John

Great responses.  Thanks to everyone.  I have the HW 19 MK IV which utilized a black acrylic arm board with the metal sub-plinth.  Plinth and arm board are the same thickness.  I also have what I think was the original TNT platter (black, lead filled with cork underside.)  The thickness of the platter relative to the height of the post is what causes the problem.

Seems like nicest fix would be the thicker arm board VPI once offered but is no longer available.  There is a place near me here in deep rural that works in acrylic that I can get to make me a new, thicker arm board.  It would raise the post relative to the platter.  Next choice is the aluminum base Bruce offers if it is thick enough.  Since my arm board is acrylic there is currently no base installed.  I'm also intrigued by Chris's idea of longer leveling spikes. 

I'm going to touch base with Bruce to see what he suggests.  Genius that he is he may have a simple fix. 

The issue is not critical.  I am near the upper limit of VTA adjustability but have a little (very little) room left.  It limits ability to experiment.
I'll report back.

Thanks again for all the helpful suggestions,
Harry