Is extremely accurate "VTA" adjustment necessary?

I have a recent experience that causes me to reopen this thread. I got a new Shindo Labs mat to replace my cork mat on the Garrard 501. Although these mats are both 3 mm. thick. The mat makes an incredible change in sound. As one of these changes is greater body to the sound but diminished sparkle in the top end. I have spent three hours so far adjusting the vta, asmuth, anti-skate, and even dampening on the Schroeder Reference. All of these have proven quite important to what I am hearing and the new mat clearly has superior bass and is quieter. I think I have found the correct asmuth by way of the equal transparency of both channels. Today, I will try the tracking weight and vta some more. The overhang is right on as is the anti-skate.

Anyone who suggests that setting up a tt is easy is crazy.

Viridian, I agree entirely. No one who has ever heard the magic of the right VTA would ever understate its impact.

I think those who've heard "the magic of right VTA", which obviously includes me, must concede that achieving it regularly requires a degree of effort and/or record-keeping that some just find too bothersome.

We don't mind doing it. Our ears seem to demand it, so we chose our tonearm with easy, accurate, repeatable and on-the-fly height adjustment. That was priority #1. No arm without that feature even made the shopping list, which of course kept the list both short and costly!

Yellow stickies with best arm heights are on each LP, so every play after the first is literally a two second adjustment. I dial in arm height while my Teres platter is spinning up to speed, so it takes no useful time at all.

Last night we spun the Classic 45rpm reissue of the Dorati/Firebird for the first time in many months. I wasn't recording arm heights when last we played it, so I guessed a setting typical for other 200g/45rpm Classic reissues. Gotta start somewhere.

The first half of side 1 was ghastly. Shrill to the point of pain. We'd never played this record with the TriPlanar/ZYX, but it never sounded this bad with the OL Silver/Shelter. WTF?

Throwing preconceived notions aside I started dialing the arm down, 1/4 turn at a time (that's a huge adjustment BTW). I finally got things tamed a full revolution (0.7mm) lower than normal for this type of record. Once my ears recovered from cowering behind the sofa I was able to dial it in to the usual sweet spot. Clearly Mr. Grundman & Co. were confused when they cut that lacquer. It's a fabulous record but the cutting head was set far lower than normal.

Since the only thing I've added to this thread is a little Romy, I mean Raul, bashing, I thought I'd throw out what is happening on my TT tonight.

I've been playing mostly heavier albums lately, but tonight I wanted to listen to some older stuff, like Yes & Genesis, because the old lady is out doing girl crap, and volume is good!

A litlle background. When I installed the VTAF, I made a new arm board to accomodate it, not wanting to cut up my nice lead-loaded solid macassar ebony board. I made one out of 1" thick cocobolo with a red coconut palm riser. This is where it gets interesting.



On the heavier albums, it sounds great. But, tonight, I've been noticing that the thin older (30 years) albums don't seem right. So, as I tried to lower the VTA while an album was playing, I said: "Oh shit, it won't go any lower." I was wondering where all of the bass I've gotten used to disappeared to, and now I know.

I've been waiting to go over every adjustment on the TT until I get my Soro back from the shop (supposed to be last week, starting to get pissed). I have Wally's Analog Tool and everything else I need, but I don't think it can wait any longer. I can't stand it now!

So, it looks like I'll whip out another riser in the shop this week, change it all out, then go to town. I guess for the next couple of days I can only listen to the 180/200 g albums. Good thing I bought a bunch of them before I even finished building the table.

I'll update as I can.