Thoughts on VTA......

Dear @uberwaltz / friends: Different cartridge paremeters set up are for different main issues.

Overhang and offset angle are for geometry alignment tonearm/cartridge set up and mainly to puts at minimum the pivoted tonearm/cartridge tracking error and the developed tracking distortion levels.

In the other side VTF is mainly to the LOMC coils stays centered and to avoid cartridge mis-tracking.

VTA/SRA/AZ are to permit that extremely stylud tip to pick up the maximum true/rigth information recorded on those grooves modulations putting at minimum the developed tracking distortions when the stylus tip is away of the rigth angle on those grooves.

So all those paremeters are way important to have " pristine " quality level performance levels but when we have an " arcaic " LP technology where the LP manufacturers are so faraway of making " perfect " LPs with no micro surface waves, off centered and the like our effort to set up in precise way each one of those parameters is just impossible. We can try to approach the best way and even that we will away of the " perfection ".

Our audio time life is really short and we have to take advantage of our each time listening MUSIC  and we can't do it if we want to stay perfect with each LP side. There is so imperfect LP technologies that even in one side LP " things change " in the quality of what we are listening it.

On ly in my LP tracks that I use in my full evaluation/tests comparison proccess I made the changes of those parameters according what I know is the best quality performance at each LP track on that evaluation proccess.

Each change in VTA/SRA makes a quality change for the better or bad?, yes, always as always happens with the other parameters too.


In the other side to make any single parameter change we have to have a reference to compare with and that reference can't be: " I like it that way ".

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

Raul is right, of course, that time is precious and trying to obtain the perfect VTA for each LP side is a waste of it. But at the same time, VTA close to perfect always sounds better, and obviously so. I won't own an arm without VTA adjustment that is easy to perform and precisely repeatable. With any kind of built-in micrometer the setting is quick and simple: you just establish a baseline (say, for 140g LPs) and then remember how much you need to raise for 180g. You can easily tell the different weight LPs by their flexibility with a little practice. If you have a 160g, raise by half; a 120g, lower by half. It's not perfect but very, very close, and takes 2 or 3 seconds. If I forget to do it, I notice the difference in sound.

@wrm57 

And finally!

That was EXACTLY my point.

I have a lot of lightweight and heavyweight albums and although my hearing is not what it was I swear I can tell a difference between the varying weights of lps.

Unfortunately neither of my arms have on the fly VTA adjustment so it is not practical right now.

Still think I will look for an arm with VTA otf.

Robelvick:

You wrote, "I keep adjusting my tonearm until the vinyl sounds as good/better than the Tidal stream." If Tidal's sound quality is your reference and you're adjusting VTA to match it, why not simply listen to most of your music streamed on Tidal?