guy sergeant wrote:

Did you see this piece Paul? http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/vta_e.html I'm not sure what to make of it. We certainly don't seem to suffer with the issues of poor mains to the same degree over here and I found that I can set up my cartridge so that it sounds good enough without having to adjust vta from record to record.  If that were necessary, I think I'd lose interest!

It is probably a good article I did not read it all – from one side I think that I know everything about VTA and from another side I do not need to know more. I have the same attitude – if I need fine-tune VTA for each record then screw the records playing. Some people used the fine-positioning arms and some used different thickness TT mats under the different records.  I do not do it. I set VTA for the sensitive needles very exact but only for average records. If my am had the precise VTA setting in run-time then I down I would use it.

BTW, one important moment that people never talk when they talk about VTA precession. If the arm had silicon dumping (and many of them do) then room temperature affect the viscosity of silicon and offset the needed VTA and even VTF.

I also use the Well Tempered Arm, but do not have the patience nor the urge to constantly fuss with the VTA setting.  I set it for an average record and leave it alone.  For me any degradation of sound quality is not so great and I just try to enjoy the music. 

But I wondered about the use of the TAP with a variable impedence as might be presented by the SET phono stage. I always worried that would cause its own problems varying with volume adjustment, the solutions for which yield a level of complexity in the system that is unappealing to me.  Of course everything is a compromise, and perhaps the TAP in your system gives a great result. 

My handbuilt phono stage is such a big improvement over the old Modulus I ALSO used to own I don't feel necessarily the urge to buy a TAP.  maybe next time I am in San Diego I will stop by to give it a listen in your system, Paul, if you do not mind, as I am curious.

I am curious as to what specific things in your system you were seeking to improve led you to put the TAP in your system in the first place though?  Can you elaborate?

Why did I drag this out for so long?  The WT Reference arm I use has easily adjustable VTA, and for some time I suffered using a loose L-shaped Allen wrench for adjustments, with no way to keep track of how high the arm was set.  Although the arm has a "scale" on one of the right parts, there is no crosshair or adjacent marking on the corresponding piece.  So, if I forgot the setting between sessions, then I had to do "macro" as well as micro adjustment by ear.  Add bad electricity to the mix and you have the stuff of self pity.

A while back I put a piece of tape on the top of the gantry and carefully dialed in a 200 g record.  Then I marked on the tape hwere the free leg of the "L" pointed.  Then I did the same with my thinnest record.

I have spent too long guestimating the thickness of records and also the appropriate relative VTA.

Yesterday I finally measured and cut off a short-ish piece of the Allen wrench and put a knob on top of it.  Then I marked the knob at the known height mark on the arm gantry.

Today I dug up a dial guage, so now I know how thick the thickest and thinnest records are, and so the approximate relative thicknesses/VTAs/dial settings.  I have started putting a symbol relating to the VTA scale on LP jackets hwen I find the correct-sounding VTA.  This means I have only "micro" adjusting to do, and that only once, from here on out, at least as long as I keep this cartridge.

Hooray!

Paul S

I finally made a fairly accurate circular "dial" that I divided into 32 sections to use as scale to use with the arm adjustment knob I described earlier.  I had been using a piece of tape I had marked and divided freehand, by eye.  I had already determined record thicknesses that correspond to points 180 degrees apart on the dial's compass.  From this point it was easy to assign a relative record thickness to each of the 32 "spokes" dividing the 360 degree dial.  I actually drew my scale as two concentric circles.  I pasted the smaller, inner circle on the arm under the adjustment knob  This smaller circle is too small to write legible numbers on, so I wrote the derived record thickness numbers on their corresponding "spokes" on the larger, outer circle, which I use for a reference/guide for settings. 

As it happens, I have only actually used about 240 degrees of adjustment, from the thinnest to the thickest records I have played since i started this system.

As it also happens, successive marks on the "spoked" scale correspond to .0031" incremental differences in record thickness with this WTR arm, and this has so far gotten me close enough in terms of relative/correct VTA, once I know the record's thickness.

It does not take long to measure a record for thickness and label it.  Once that is done, it's done and I can listen lots more, and I can listen to records with less trouble in hot weather now.  I very seldom get up to re-set, once I set and start and a measured LP.  Basically, it's all good, a very relaxing way to go.

I can't think of any way to improve this system, so from here it's down to observations about the sound of various labels, recordings, curves, etc., and these will appear elsewhere.

Paul S

Axel wrote:

Now, Paul you have overlooked on major, MAJOR, VTA / vinyl interface item ---- the way the actual record groove was cut, it varies by make and brand.