2. analog
  3. 1224968450

VPI tone arm set up

Wanting to get back into analog, I just completed all my purchases (here on Audiogon) and am ready to start putting everything together. I have a VPI Aries 1 turntable, a VPI JMW 9 Sig. tonearm and a Shelter 501 mk11 cartridge I have mounted to a Cartridge Man Isolator. My question is- I understand the distance between the spindle and tone arm pivot is to be 223mm. Are they talking about center of turntable spindle to center of tonearm pivot? Also, I purchsed a VPI tonearm jig and noticed it only has 1 null point (inner, closest to turntable spindle) where as other jigs I've seen have 2 null points. Will this align correctly?
markpao
mm2550
16 posts
 
I have a Scout and the Shelter 501 cartridge. Apparently, the combination is controversial to some on these boards, although I think it sounds good. The dealer added some weights to the cartridge to make the combo work better. By the way, I'm an amateur, but since you have the same cartridge, I thought I would just call this issue to your attention.
stanwal's avatar
stanwal
3,147 posts
 
If you look on Vinyl Engine there is an exhaustive study of VPI arm geometry. It exhausted me and I'm a VPI dealer. But it is worth a look. The design of many of the moving coils is not greatly changed from the days when tone arms were typically of much higher mass and with lower mass arms the resonance frequency of the cartridge-arm combination will be too high. Thus the weights to raise the arm mass.
markus1299
252 posts
 
I have the same turn table and arm that you have and went through the learning curve with set up information ETC. At the end I found that the Mint Tractor was by far the best set up tool available for this combination. The difference in sound between the VPI set up and the Mint Tractor blew me away. Google "Mint Tractor", you will not be sorry and I'm in no way associated with any kind of sales for this tool. I just know it really does work.
stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,500 posts
 
I second Markus 2399 regarding the Mint Tractor.
sonofjim
557 posts
 
You can get good results with either the VPI jig or the Mint Tractor. In the end though, the results with the Mint tool are significantly better and much more reproducable. With the VPI jig, I could always talk myself out of thinking I had it right(like trying to hang a picture straight by eye). The Mint is more accurate by removing siting error from the equation through the use of reflection.
More to discover