VTA and HTA overhang

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.

Ketchup, I was not aware of that feature on the ET arms. Very interesting.

Some say that the tracking error of linear arms is actually more than pivoted arms because of the higher horizontal effective mass. This causes the cantilever to deflect more than is optimal and creates tracking error.

I don't own a linear tracker so I have no personal experience with that. At the last RMAF I spoke with Peter Ledermann of Soundsmith. With his new Hyperion cartridge there is an option for a suspension optimized for linear trackers. Horizontal compliance is lowered while the vertical compliance stays the same. This stops the cantilever from deflecting too far. This in turn lowers distortion. This sounds like a good idea. I'm not sure if that option is available for his lower end carts though?

Sarcher, That's better. Maybe it was use of terms, not sure.

Anyway, "The people that try to get the perfect SRA for every record must believe that it's more important than perfect alignment. I doubt there are many people that would go to the trouble of adjusting overhang for every record as well."

I know that's taken out of context, but that perception was what I was addressing by statements about percentage of records needing correction, and viability of resultant alignments. If SRA is set for 92, then additional SRA angle results in less overhang from raising the arm. It's true that angle changes slightly but less overhang would put a Baerwald alignment a hair closer to Stevenson. A small change in height results in a much smaller change in overhang, depending on eff length, plus most records don't need correcting.

After many thousands of records, it's a trade-off I might make to optimize SQ. Hence the popularity of on-the-fly adjusters. The only problem with some of them, is they compromise mounting integrity. Some linear arms are a particular problem with respect to changing SRA, those with a short arm tube.
Regards,

Ketchup, I was not aware of that feature on the ET arms. Very interesting

It is pretty cool. I don't know of any other arm with this feature. After I posted above, I realized that the height of the ET2 arm can also be adjusted to compensate for vinyl of differing thicknesses without moving the bearing housing in an arc (which you would not want to do in this case because that would effect overhang). To do this, you move the arc block up and down on the post.

So, you can either move the bearing housing up and down on the arc block to adjust SRA without effecting overhang or move the arc block up and down on the post to adjust arm height for vinyl of varying thicknesses, also without effecting overhang. Moving the arc block on the post is not as easy and can't be done on the fly like moving the bearing housing on the arc block, but the capability is there. Bruce Thigpen thought of everything when designing the ET2!