Up grade to a new turntable

VTA on the fly is highly over rated and can be detrimental to the performance of the tonearm. On this subject I think Michael Fremer is correct. Set it to 92 degrees and forget about it. Even if you swap cartridges frequently it is not necessary. You can index the tonearms post for each cartridge you use. 

Sorry, but I am gonna break protocol and radio silence on this one. Don’t care what MF says. Don’t care what anyone says. Only care what my ears hear, because that is what we call REALITY. And reality tells me there is nothing in all of turntable setup that you can do that will have a greater impact on imaging, tone balance, detail and harmonic rightness than to precisely dial in VTA.

Budget tables have to meet a price point. For that they must make all kinds of sacrifices. VTA is relatively expensive to implement. As soon as funds allow however and you are in a range where VTA on the fly is possible, one of the smartest things you can do is exclude from consideration arms that lack VTA adjustment.

Tracking alignment you can do reasonably accurate and do just fine. Tracking angle after all varies several degrees across the side no matter what you do. Nobody ever hears this, though they love to opine on how critical it is. Even though they never hear it. VTF you are always given a range, and while small differences can be heard within that range they are nothing compared to the differences heard with VTA.

This leaves VTA as by far the most important of all the adjustments we have control over. It can only be done by ear. Not by measuring.

Maybe that is the reason some talk it down? It calls for listening skills?

@daveyonthecoast
Given your 4 options I'd choose the Kuzma.

Other $4k price/performance suggestions:
- MOFI Ultradeck with the MasterTracker cart for $2.5k total.  Lots of favorable reviews.
- Rega Planar 8 or used Rega Planar 10 - great sound for the $, cutting edge lightweight design, but doesn't have the deepest bass energy and tonearm may be a bit more finicky to set up.

Who said VTA adjustment was unimportant or makes no significant difference?


Mijo, you’re thinking of SRA, not VTA, when you mentioned 92 degrees. I’m sure that was just a mental typo. Me, I never have even tried to visualize SRA. I just set VTA so the top of the headshell is parallel to the LP surface, listen, and then tweak VTA up or down from there looking for best tonal balance.

Hello,
Mijo.,
I recently helped a friend setup a VPI Prime with the unipivot. Pain in the @$$! But once I finished setting it up; it was the VTA was the real factor that made it sound incredible. Another friend who has the same table had it setup by a guy who does this for a living using state of the art gear said I nailed it. It was as good as he has heard. But, you are correct about the Ortifon LVB. I would have to go with a different phono stage for that. Maybe the 20/20 or the Duo. I will call Ron Sutherland about the Dynavector 10X5 Mk2. When I was demoing to the TZ Vibe for him he did not mention it would not work. At the time I was listening to a Rega P8 with the Ania pro cart. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. I am not being sarcastic. I really do appreciate it. I was given a Linn Axis TT so I didn’t want to go crazy with the cart on this table. I think my endgame table is the VPI prime with or prime 21. I think I like the unipivot more than the Gimbal arm.