Table/Cart Set Up - By Ear or Test Record?

Doug, When I did move my arm base up vertically 2 mm at the pivot, I checked my overhang alignment on the MINT. I have a 12" arm, but I'm surprised by how much my HTA moved - well beyond my margin of error in set-up. I'm sure you and Doug don't adjust VTA by that much with your 9" arm. It was especially off the arc at the outer (lead in groove) edge. I start by lining up the inner part of the arc near the spindle. Then I check the outer part near the edge of the platter. If it looks spot on at the inside, it can be off at the outside by as much as 2-3 mm. This, IMO, is what is frustrating and takes time with the MINT.

My point is that I wish a slight change in overhane were just a matter of the stylus being off the arc uniformly by a small amount, but in fact, it is off by a varying degree along the length of the arc, and much more at the outside edge. How this actually affects the null points, I'm not sure.

I do, however, know that in a highly resolving system, slight changes to any of these parameters are clearly audible. Some more so than others. I agree with you that proper SRA is critical and then I would list VTF, then Zenith, then anti-skate, and finally HTA. I can't really adjust for azimuth with my arm, but I find my cartridge to not be that sensitive to that, or the stylus/cantilever is pretty accurately mounted.

I use the manufacturer recommended settings as a good starting point, and then make all final adjustments by ear.

Maybe this is rehashing old verbage, but it is becoming clear here that the experienced people use the tools for the initial set-up and then tweak or trim things in by ear. Listening is the final step of the process. Part of the reason why is simply the tolerances and accuracy of the tools we use. e.g. the stylus force gage. Unless your stylus force gage is calibrated and traceable back to the National Bureau of Standards, don't count on accuracy better than +/-10-15%. So if you are setting your VTF to 1.5 grams, the actual could range from 1.35-1.65 grams. The same with the protractors if you think about the accuracy of the printing on them as well as the accuracy of adjusting overhang and VTA by eye.

Do you not think that the cartridge designers know that the pivoting tonearm has only two tangency points? Look at the stylus designs. The have curved faces to allow for the changing angle through the arc of the pivot. I don't see a pivoting tonearm as a compromise.

That's because you're misinterpreting tracking angle distortion.

Tracking angle distortion does not result from the interface of ONE stylus face with ONE groove wall. It results when the TWO contact edges of a playback stylus hit the opposing groovewalls at DIFFERENT times then the two contact edges of the original cutting stylus... ie, when they're out of synch.

Imagine an LP groove with an identical sound cut onto both walls (a perfectly centered image on a stereo LP or any mono LP). The two groovewalls are mirror images of each other, right?

Now imagine playing that groove with a line contact or other modern stylus. If this stylus is not angled exactly the same as the (even sharper) cutting stylus, one contact edge will encounter the (supposedly identical) sound before the other contact edge. This puts the two channels out of phase and that muddies the sound. TA-DA!... tracking angle distortion.

A conical (aka, spherical) stylus will be less distorting (in this respect) than the radical, modern styli. Modern contact radii are much smaller and thus emphasize any errors in timing between the two groovewalls. This is why many mono catridges are fitted with conical styli. The reduction in tracking angle distortion somewhat compensates for the loss of HF extension that's inherent in styli with larger contact radii.

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Peter - thanks for checking... I think! lol. FWIW, I never move my arm anywhere near 2mm. My entire record collection falls in a range of a couple rotations of the VTA tower dial. Most fall in a much tighter range than that.


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Tonywinsc, I think your last post summarized it well. Trust tools to do the limited things they can do. Train your ears to do the fine tuning.

Listening is not only the final step of the process, it's the purpose for which we go through the process at all.

When do you listen to music, or do you test by ear with music. When I test by ear, I use test frequencies. This test by ear conversation in regard to TT's sounds good but it won't fly. There's too much subjective excrement flying around.

By rights you can use an oscilloscope to dial in all of the varibles of your turntable such as platter speed, tonearm and cartridge set up for complete piece of mind. But if you can't trust your own ears, what can you trust?