VTA and HTA overhang

Reading these posts made me break out my MINT protractor and check the alignment again....its still perfect. I adjusted the arm so that it is absolutely level and I leave it that way, no matter the thickness of the record that I play. I know that it may sound better with the back end up or down, but I don't really care. I depend on the cartridge manufacturer (Benz) to provide the proper angles of the stylus. The sound is excellent to these ears.

Where did the notion of perfect alignment originate? It is only tangent at 2 points throughout the record side, whatever alignment you choose. Wax poetic about your wonderful alignment, but it is only choosing one set of errors vs another.

What about the null throughout the record, when the stylus is or is not vertically aligned with the angle/cut of the groove undulations? Why is that unimportant, because Roy Gandy can't hear it, or it's cheaper to make an arm without height adjustment?

In reality, if your arm height is set so SRA is right for the "average" record, it won't have to be changed for every one. The majority of records will sound right. But for the occasional record that is obviously off (assuming you can hear it), a small change in height will have little affect on horizontal alignment, and great affect on vertical alignment.
Regards,

Fleib, I can't really argue with what you're saying but what I mean by perfect alignment is least distortion. For pivoting arms this means least max and/or average distortion for horizontal alignment. Have a look at the alignment calculator on vinyl engine. If you play with the null points and or different alignment such as Stevenson or Baerwald it will show the maximum and average distortion for each choice. For least maximum distortion Baerwald is the way to go.

Can you hear it if it's a little off? I think so if your system is resolving enough.Is it a big difference? Not really.

Hi Searcher, Actually, Baerwald (Loefgren A) is least average error across the entire record i.e. even amount beginning, middle, end. Loefgren(B) is least total error. That's because nulls are closer to the middle where error is the greatest, but error is a little higher at the beginning. Stevenson puts the inner null at the lead out groove to help with inner groove problems. There's no right/wrong. I've aligned many arms designed for Stevenson with nulls between there and Baerwald. IMO it worked out better.

Why only consider horizontal aspect? Tracking is 3 dimensional. If SRA is off, it effects playback of the entire record. If someone finds occasional height adjustment to sound better than not, how can you question that?

Theo, adjusting for differences in record thickness (weight) is exactly what I do using a Herbie's "Donut" mat. I use a 0.5mm mat to compensate for the thinner 120g-150g LPs. Actually, I'm compensating for the heavy 180g-200g LPs that I started purchasing a few years back; I noticed that SRA was changing slightly with the thicker LPs. So now I set up my cartridge alignment and tonearm height for proper SRA using one of my best 180g LPs (even thickness and flat) and then use the "Donut" mat to raise the thinner LPs up off the platter. It's not an elegant solution like the VTA adjusters on some tonearms, but it works.

The 0.5mm mat was a compromise because it actually works for a small range of LP thicknesses. (Refer to chart below.) I tried using a 0.8mm mat for the thinnest LPs (100g-120g) and used the 0.5mm mat for 130g-150g LPs but found that dealing with two mats wasn't worth the additional benefit for the lightweight LPs. They comprise a minority of my LPs so I can live with it. I'd rather set things up to optimize for the majority of my records and the high quality heavy vinyl.

Thickness/Weight
1.00" / 100g
1.27" / 120g
1.52" / 150g
1.77" / 180g
2.02" / 200g

I found the "Donut" to be sonically neutral using it with a Gyro SE platter. I'm not sure about other platter materials and construction.

Regards,
Tom