Is extremely accurate "VTA" adjustment necessary?

dougdeacon. as long as you dont move the bdoy of the cartridge, pivot to stylus distance is a constant. you are however right in that you have alterered the overhang points. i think what you meant to say is that raising or lowering causes the stylus to fall on a different spot on the circumference of the record. it will then describe a different arc from than the one you used to optimize overhang.

Doug, that is correct, the overhang will be affected in a minor way, when adjusting VTA.

I agree it gets very difficult to make everything perfect on every record, and I don't even try to do it. I just get it as close as I can by ear, and go with it.

It is great to make things as accurate as possible, and as long as it doesn't intrude on your listening experience, then it's fine to do as much tuning as you are comfortable with.

does'nt this mean you also changed the distance when you put on records of different thicknes? by re leveling the arm you have brought it back into alignment.

Rene:

6mm is .23 inches. I do not recall making any changes nearly that large, once the arm/cartridges were intially "ballparked" in. This (the small changes) are what made the adjustments somewhat difficult to make, for me anyway.

The less than 1/16" crude change, I make with the rider mats, seems to be approx. the same range (a little more) used with the adjustable arm. I'm guessing the arm was 9-10".

I'm also currently using less than SOTA cartidges, which are not very fussy.

We were trying older Grace and Denon cartridges on the Rega deck (mentioned earlier). Didn't care for the sound of the Denon's and was told that the Grace would be too delicate (my wife and teenage Godson also use the TT).

An interesting LP to try, with an easily adjustable arm, is "The Last Castrato". I have two versions (think the later one was issued on Pearl). It used to sell for <$10 on Ebay.

Gregad,

as long as you dont move the bdoy of the cartridge, pivot to stylus distance is a constant

I worded my post very carefully. If you read it again you'll note I said the stylus-to-arm mount distance would change. Stylus-to-pivot is fixed, as you say, unless the armtube is made of rubber or the cartridge moves in the headshell.

does'nt this mean you also changed the distance when you put on records of different thicknes? by re leveling the arm you have brought it back into alignment.

Point covered, re-read my 6th paragraph.

We're not disagreeing, just awkward stuff to describe in words rather than pictures.

Twl,
Totally agree. Of course obsessing about minute details is the point of this thread, so I'm right at home! ;-)