Do You Have a Favorite Disk to Set VTA/SRA?


And what, precisely, do you listen for?
melm

Showing 4 responses by whart

I used to use the Ave Maria track from The Mission- choral, voices are added, too high and they thin out, too low and they lose their location.
I used to actively change arm height on, if not a record by record basis, then at least by rough gradients of 'thick,' 'normal' and 'thin.' (Easy enough to do on the fly with my arm). But, I've found that some cartridges seem to be far more sensitive to VTA. Right now, my cartridge is a little more agnostic (as was its predecessor) so I'm pretty much set and forget.
I still want a remote controlled arm height adjustment though. (Not laziness, it's hard to tune, run back to the sweet spot, tune, etc).
Back to our original program. :)
Doug- your way of describing the differences is helpful. The difference in timing between the fundamental and the harmonics/decay is consistent, i think, with the grosser difference in 'thin' v 'thick' sounding. I agree that the window seems to be tiny, in that there is a 'just right' spot (just as I think most records have a 'natural volume' where they tend to sound best in a given room). But, when I had Lyra cartridges- I guess very revealing at least at the upper rungs of their ladder- i found them incredibly sensitive to VTA. Not so much with the Airtights which I've been running for a long while.
The setting on the fly isn't an issue for a lot of arms. The issue, for me, is running back and forth between the table and the listening position to hear what my adjustments are doing~ thus, the overwhelming value of a remote controlled arm height adjustment. Because, if you are going this far, and doing it record by record (respecting Ralph's point that no record is cut at the same angle), it just becomes a giant PITA unless your listening chair is adjacent to the turntable; not a set up I've ever run. Has anyone else? Ralph: are you dialing in and having to jog back and forth between the table and your listening position?
Cz- clever idea.
Ralph- thanks, that's where I'm at too, not fiddling too much.