VTA and cartridge loading

Hi Peter, Happy Holidays.

I can't directly answer your question, I am sure others will chime in, but I will say VTA and VTF have a definite linkage.

As you increase or decrease vertical tracking force it will change Vertical tracking angle. Now to what extent and how sensitive your setup is to this change is a debateable. For me, a .25 gram change if VTF clearly drives a need for VTA adjustment (which is easy on my TriPlanar)

vtf definitely affects vta and more importantly sra. actually, a very small amount of vtf affects the sra more than a substantial adjustment in height of the arm at the pivot point.
here's an interesting article by fremer:
http://www.soundscapehifi.com/mysonic-eminent-stereophile.pdf

In real life they have nothing in common. Whenever you change a cartridge or Phonostage, you will start all over again.
VTA
That is the main error in thinking, that doing up or down will create this or that.
It depends on the age of record, in which angle the grooves were cut. There are huge differences between an old Mercury and a MFSL reissue.
Next, all cartridges are different from angle of cantilever, stylus and the polish of it. When the needle is moved up/down in the groove, you also change the contact area of the needle.

Phonostage
There is no Standard, means, 100Ω from Phonostage A has have nothing in common with 100Ω of Phonostage B. You have to find you own best setting.
Analog is a chain, you have influence from the Arm cable, internal vibrations from the turntable too and from the gain to your speakers in general.
There is also a high frequency rise with MC's, a real task for Phonostage Designers (Solidstate). That is one reason why most Phonostage sound shrill when they are loaded with 1k-47k. It needs very much knowledge to make it right, the only Transistor Phonos I heard who did it were Curl Vendetta and Klyne 7.
To make the life easy, all recommend to "load" them down but in reality it is a damping and will make the carts slow and dull. But how much of "slow and dull" is each ones own try and error, more or less a compromise because the cycle starts all over agin with a new component and you can forget everything you did before. 47k for example is no damping, you can hear the cart the way it is made, without any limits, but most won't like it. But it has nothing to do with your taste, you will hear the limits from the Designers. Still a task today.

Your question to be set first?
It doesn't matter. Do whatever you like.

I'm sorry, but I don't think my post was written clearly enough. I'm referring to VTA, vertical tracking angle, and MC cartridge loading, ie 30, 50, 100, 500, 47000 ohms. I do understand that VTF effects VTA as more or less downward force on the stylus effects the angle of the cantilever and stylus as it sits in the groove, but that is not my question.

I'm interested in the sonic results of changing cartridge loading resistive values inside the phono amp. My understanding is that the sonic results are similar to those heard when changing VTA. I'm finding that lowering my VTA can be offset by selecting a higher resistive load and visa versa, but I would appreciate comments from those with more set up experience.

For example, when I lower my VTA, lower frequency information becomes more emphasized at the expense of upper frequency information. Then to regain some liveliness and air I can raise the resistive loading value from say 50 ohms to 100 ohms. Is loading a value that should simply be set by knowing the cartridge output and matching the phono amp and leaving it alone, or should it be experimented with to find the best sonic balance?