Cartridge Mounting Hardware


I recently upgraded my tonearm to the Clearaudio Universal. This is a great arm and worth tweaking and experimenting a bit to get the best out of it. My cartridge – Concerto V2 (7 gr.) – came with several sets of cartridge mounting bolts: 5 mm nylon and aluminum flathead screws, and 8 mm stainless hex bolts. No nuts since my cartridge is tapped for the bolt threads. For years I've been using stainless bolts. With those I use a 49 gr. stainless counterweight and it sits nearly as close as it can go to the fulcrum when VTA is dialed in. When I play the Hi Fi News test record the resonant frequency of the arm is more or less at ~10 Hz as far as I can tell.

Conventional wisdom – AFAIK – says that's all good. 

I recently saw a Clearaudio photo of my arm with another one of their cartridges in the line (also 7 gr.) and it's mounted with the nylon screws. That got me to thinking about trying it, and maybe trying the aluminum ones too. With the nylon screws I can no longer use the 49 gr. stainless counterweight, and have to change to the aluminum 31.5 gr. counterweight, but that sits farther out away from the tonearm fulcrum (although it looks cooler, IMO). I'm trying that now. With the test record the tonearm resonant frequency is still right around 10 Hz. I'm playing music now and don't notice a difference, but my aural memory for such things sucks, so I have to live with it for a bit, and then revert to see how I feel. This weekend I'll play some records I use to test out setup changes and see if I hear anything for better or worse.

So that makes me wonder what others know and experience about cartridge mounting hardware (and techniques). What's your wisdom on the matter?
dwette
The correct way to tighten something is according to the manufacturer’s specifications. They know more about their products than anyone else does. 
The correct way to tighten something is according to the manufacturer’s specifications. They know more about their products than anyone else does.


These are the manufacturer specs for fixing the bolts on my Clearaudio Concerto V2, given in the installation manual...

"Please take care to not overtight them by force"

How many cartridge/tonearm manufacturers provide this spec?
At 11:54, "Torque values have nothing to do with sound."

At 3:23, "Of course these things matter. Of course they affect the sound."

Yeah, sure, whatever, Mr. Miller. Goodbye.
While I don’t have the spec for my cartridge’s (Audio-Technica VM540ML) mounting screw torque, I’ve requested that of the manufacturer just recently. If I get an answer back, I’ll share it here. 
I for one do not remember ever seeing an actual torque spec for any cartridge I have ever purchased or investigated the specs of online.
Not saying nobody provides them but not seen it yet.
Now I am not claiming my fingers are an accurate torque wrench at all but every cart I have ever mounted has been by feel and definitely NEVER overtight.
However if you are a bit of a klutz this method may not work very well for you!