VTA and HTA overhang


I was adjusting VTA on my tonearm tonight and out of curiosity decided to check how it effected the overhang according to my MINT LP protractor. To my surprise, very small changes to VTA on my 12" arm are quite noticeable when trying to align my stylus to the arc on my alignment protractor.

My question is to all of you who change VTA for each LP. How do you compensate or adjust for the resulting change in Horizontal Tracking Angle (HTA) or overhang each time you change your VTA setting?

Besides the hassle of adjusting VTA for different LPs, this is another reason I don't fuss with VTA once I have found a good setting for the majority of my LPs. I wonder if those who attribute sonic differences to VTA changes are not also hearing slight changes to alignment which surely effects the sonics.
peterayer
I view perfect alignment if the stylus touches the inscribed arc at any point on the Mint protractor
Sarcher30, the mat I'm referring to is not the "Way Excellent" mat; it's the "Donut" mat found at the bottom of the Herbie's Turntable Mat web page. It's basically the elastomer wafer of the "Way Excellent" mat without the silicone foam base. The "Donut" is not intended to absorb vibrations so it's sonically inert for the most part. That's why I found it to be a good method to adjust for LP thickness and SRA on the Gyro SE.

Theo, I'm not familiar with the Linn 12 platter so cannot say if it will work the same as for the Gyro SE. But I will add that I also use a "Donut" on a Music Hall mmf-7 turntable, which has an acrylic platter, and the results are similar. The main difference is that I use a Way Excellent mat on the mmf-7 and it compresses slightly so I use the 0.81mm "Donut" to account for the compression.

Regards,
Tom
The only way the offset would not move when adjusting VTA up or down is if the tonearm post was curved.

The Eminent Technology ET 2 tonearm has a curved post for this exact reason. The part is called the arc block or VTA block. The arc block is stationary and the bearing housing rides the arc of the arc block as VTA is adjusted to keep overhang dead on.
Sarcher30, I didn't mean to imply that you took a position, that you really didn't. I should have addressed my last comment to "anyone who". Sorry.
As far as the various alignments, you still have them mixed up. Baerwald goes for even error at beginning, middle and end. Loefgren B has least total error. Maybe description on VE is confusing, but nevertheless.
Regards,
Fleib, I'm not confused. Yes Lofgren B has the least average distortion. But Lofgren B also has the most max distortion. Meaning that at the beginning and the end of the LP the distortion is higher than the other alignments but in the middle of the LP the distortion is lower than the other alignments. It's a compromise.

We are not really saying different things. We are just expressing it differently.

From what I've read the distortion gets higher towards the inner grooves because of the tighter radius. It seems to me that you want to minimize distortion at the end of the record. Lofgren B has the most distortion at the inner and outter grooves. I would think this should be avoided unless you are playing discs that have no music on the inner gooves. Like most of the newer 12" 45's I have gotten. I also have some double LP's that don't use much of the inner grooves either.