VdH VTA setting preferences

Dgad: First regarding your cartridge loading. Most cartridge makers simply state a minimum input impedance (load) for their cartridges. Below that number, the phono preamp input will (and I'm oversimplifying) begin to look like a short to the cartridge and shunt it's output. But that doesn't mean that that is the optimum load for the cartridge-and-phono preamp electronics which will give you the most effective output and flattest response in your system. The figure of 25 times the internal coil resistance of the cartridge is a good place to mark as the center of a range that goes from 50% less than that figure to 50% more than that figure. I've found the best way to dial in the optimum setting (for your system) is to begin near the lower end of that range and work up, keeping the midpoint in mind for reference. As you begin, you will probably experience muddy or undefined bass which will tighten and tighten as you move up the range. But at some point, if you continue to add load, the (amount of) bass will begin to drop off and the balance will begin to shift toward the mid/high end. You then need to reduce the load a little at a time until the top to bottom frequency balance is restored.

If instead you continue to add load, the mid/highs will continue to predominate, and may even become glarey or grainy. If you now tilt the cartridge backward, you will be mechanically reducing the high frequency response of the cartridge, because the stylus will be "skimming" across some of those delicate groove modulations, and the frequency balance will (only) appear to be restored.

As for the advice of Lloyd Walker and others, I have no problem with it except to ask, "What is neutral?" If it means with the stylus perpendicular to the record, that would be OK, but my suggestion of first setting up the stylus perpendicular, and then adding an average Stylus Rake Angle of about 1-1/2 degrees, gets you a lot closer to the starting line.

However, the only way you can do this, even using Lloyd's method, is to actually take the time (it can be tedious, but you only have to do it once for a given cartridge) to really find out where that "neutral" position is for your stylus. I inspected two vdH Frogs, a standard one and a Gold, and the Gold stylus was vertical (perpendicular to the record) when the cartidge body was parallel to the record. The other Frog had a rake (of unknown amount) on the stylus when the cartridge body was parallel to the record. Lowering the back of the tonearm brought the stylus of that cartridge perpendicular. From that point, the back of the tonearm was then raised 6 mm to apply the 1-1/2 degree SRA. And lo and behold, the tonearm was just about parallel!

So I can't stress enough, the importance of doing this preliminary determination. You'll be glad you did. After all, the "big breakthrough" in stylus design, after the elliptical styli (which were ground, like on a jeweler's wheel) was the "line-contact" stylus which is shaped and polished using lasers, and was developed so the stylus could more effectively approximate the cutter head and "lock" into the groove. I might be crazy, but it certainly seems to me counterproductive to risk defeating this capability by not taking care to insure that these sophisticated styli fit into the groove as their designers intended.

The van den Huls are known to be "artisanal' in the sense of variation from one cartridge to the next for a given model. Nsgarch's findings that one stylus was spot on and the other a bit off is consistent with this reputation.

A line-contact stylus is basically a Shibata stylus, which was created by RCA for its quadrophonic program in the early 70's -- they needed something sharper than the elliptical and conical designs of the day to be able to track the 30 kHz. high frequency carrier that had the information for the rear two channels. It was after this that its use was extended to stereo LP's.

The Shibata stylus was definitely a precursor to the line contact, but it was still crafted using standard grinding techniques. I thought it predated the SQ records, but my memory may be wrong. As I recall, it had slightly curved edges, which was as close as could be achieved by the standard shaping methods, without breaking the diamond. I think vdH was actually the first to develop a true line contact by (as I understand) using lasers.

I was unaware that vdH had these variations from cartridge to cartridge, but it doesn't surprise me, and highlights the need to make the initial determination of stylus position I recommend. Further, if you examine certain cartridges that have short cantilevers (notably Condor, Colibri, Allaerts) you'll notice the pole piece (behind the coil) or in the case of the Allaerts, the front pole piece, have been beveled to better clear the record. If you tilt them backwards, even a little, you could be in for a heap of trouble.

Nsgarch,

Thanks for the excellent quotation from Nakatsuka-san. As you and he said, the contact edges of the playback stylus must be oriented as precisely as possible to the angle of the original cutting stylus, particularly with these new styli. Every ZYX I've had in my system (seven different models from the Airy 2 upwards) has played best with the cartridge body very close to level. This has in turn resulted in an SRA just slightly forward of vertical.

One variable you haven't mentioned is variation in cutting angles. As I'm sure you know, the industry standard for VTA was not established until well into the LP era, and even then it was not always followed. With very sensitive cartridges like the ones being discussed on this thread best sound can only be attained by adusting arm height for each LP. (In fact, we have one or two LP's whose master lacquers for each side were cut at different angles. We have to adjust arm height when flipping the record - oy!)

Whether adjusting for each LP is worth the bother is an individual choice of course, but there's no question it's beneficial. For us it's a matter of necessity. On most records my partner cannot tolerate SRA being off even a little. (Remember the princess and the pea?!) Setting SRA visually, even with a magnifier, would only get us in the ballpark.

Dgad,

Using a CD to adjust SRA/VTA might help your ears learn the basics, but it must ultimately be an unsatisfactory method for a number of reasons.

1) Mastering of CD and LP are often different.

2) As I mentioned above, cutting stylus angle varies from record to record. Therefore, maintaining the "perfect" contact angles so excellently described by Nsgarch necessitates resetting arm height for each LP. No CD can help with that.

3) Frequency balance only changes with coarse VTA/SRA adjustments. Fine adjustments change the time-domain response of different frequencies without altering their overall balance. This is the fine-tuning Lloyd Walker mentions in his second step.

Again, whether one chooses to take this last step is a personal choice. If you do, then Nsgarch's starting point (SRA very slightly positive) is a fine place to begin. After that it's a matter of listening and adjusting. The range of arm height changes at this stage is very small. Moving our arm up or down .007" will take us on or off the sweet spot.

Doug, thanks for your support. Your are right of course about various cutter settings and record thicknesses affecting the optimum SRA for any given record.

I only wish I had your arm (I mean your tonearm!) so I could make slight adjustments on the fly. Just try that with an SME V -- or better yet, don't!