Is VTA and SRA the same thing?

Guys. Jeesh. You move the arm up or down until your ears &/or electrical measurement system tell you that best results are obtained. Surely this academic squabble over definitions is meaningless in the practical domain!

@solypsa, thank you for stating the obvious. +1

Go to soundsmith.com
Mr Lederman answers all of your questions in both written and video formats your choice.

bent

Yeah Ledermann covers it all. He somehow manages the seemingly impossible feat of being even more long winded than me. He on the other hand is infinitely more interesting. And experienced.

millercarbon

VTA generally refers to the angle of the tone arm, although technically it is the angle of the cantilever.

Nope, you’re wrong again. Let @melm explain:

... VTA is the angle made by the stylus tip to the cantilever attachment to the cartridge. It is a bit different than the angle of the cantilever itself.

Millercarbon your claim here is also false:

if you raise the arm to increase VTA by 1 degree then yes SRA will also change by 1 degree.

To be fair to you, it will be very, very close to a 1 degree change. But it won’t be exactly 1 degree and that you don’t understand that shows you’re as confused now as when you stated earlier that VTA and SRA are the same thing.

Hey millercarbon, don’t you think it’s time you get your facts straight about LP geometry? I made it easy for you by linking to the definitive work on VTA/SRA by Risch & Meier published in Audio magazine.

And when you’re done with that, please do some research on HTA. It’s one of the most critical aspects of phono cartridge alignment, yet it seems to have completely escaped your attention.