How important is Cartridge Overhang? Need help

Dear Wilson667: That is something that you have to check " live ": I mean you have to measure ( you have to do it physically. ) the distance between the stylus and the tonearm pivot.

It is hard to believe that with that tonearm you can set up that cartridge: the overhang ( center of the TT spindle to stylus. ) must measure 18mm.
Now if the spindle to pivot distance is 212 and you can't get/match 230mm from stylus to pivot then you need a different tonearm or a different cartridge or you can make wider the headshell slot.

regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Hi, Wilson667, have been gone this weekend or would have responded earlier. Sounds as if the tone arm MAY have been redesigned and the specifications have not been revised to reflect a different effective length of (perhaps) ~237.5mm. That's assuming that Pro-Ject still designs the headshell for a range of cartridge mounting holes-to-stylus distances. If the center of the slots is at 228mm plus ~9.5mm gives an effective tone arm length of ~237.5mm. The other assumptions are that the headshell offset angle has been revised to accomodate the Lofgren A/Baerwald alignment geometry and that Pro-Ject may have unfortunately failed to change the pivot-to-spindle distance to ~220mm to accomodate the revised effective length.

So many variables and so many assumptions. Not a good scenario.

My advice is for you, or the retailer that sold you the turntable, to contact Pro-Ject/Sumiko USA and ask about the apparent discrepancies.

Tom

Agree w Tom. Something does not seem to be right.

It sounds like the arm was positioned using effective length from spindle to pivot instead of spindle-to-pivot length (eff. length minus overhang).

By the way overhang or more exactly a change in effective length of the tonearm via poor setup is not as important as VTA, VTA, anti skate or azimuth. Just a FYI. Do the measurements. The slight change in effective length / overhang can either result in increase maximum distortion or even increased overall distortion. But it also can result in reduced maximum distortion or reduced overall distortion and change your Null Point from Lofgren A to Lofgren B or otherwise or visa/ versa. If you run the distortion specifications the change might in fact be not dramatic.

But incorrect VTA can result in a major sonic compromise. So all the work to align HTA without correct VTA or otherwise is really for very little. After taking a sample of typical errors in setup and checking the resulting distortion figuress the results in fact are that different than the "prescribed" HTA of the arm in question.

Feel free to take me up on this but this can be mathematically validated.

So is the Mint or any other protractor that importaant. And that answer is it depends on the arm/ setup and more.