How to set SRA after determining true vertical?

Nsgarch, Dougdeacon,

This is a great post. This combined with the John Risch article enabled me to explore VTA positions that I would not have ventured to test before. I am now achieving stellar performance.

Dougdeacon's advice in setting SRA by listening is important. However, what I found the most valuable about this post and related references is that it' s very effective at getting a good starting point and idea about the range of arm psotions that can yield great sound.

Being a novice, I assumed that a parallel arm position was the best initial setting and that one shouldn't deviate too far from that. However, the best position I have found ranges from 1-2 degrees from vertical.

The arm is far from parallel in this range and I never would have ventured this far away from parallel had I not read these posts.

I also agree that listening to the bass perfromance and the HF detail are tell tale signs of optimal settings in SRA.

Thank you!

I hope more people can benefit from this.

Andrew

Doug,

Yellow stickers. Maybe. The more I learn and experiment the more I'm becoming a "believer" in the importance of arm/cartridge parameter optimization. The next step is to experiment with VTF.

Regarding your comment: "I rarely hear any sonic effect that I would attribute to armtube angle", I think you mean that it is not the arm tube angle that you are setting directly. However getting the best SRA requires moving the arm up or down, which invairably changes the arm tube angle relative to the record surface.

SRA = f(stylus angle on cantilever, and arm height)

Arm tube angle = f(arm height)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the armtube angle, indirectly, does have a big effect on sonic attributes.

Nsgarch,

I found this to be true as well. Raising the arm at the pivot point by 6-8mm improved the sound dramatically. Better bass extension and tautness (very punchy) combined with more detailed highs.

I tried this compared to a level arm tube postion and sligthly lower height of the arm from true parallel. I found that a lower than parallel arm tube position seemed to bloat and diminish the detail of the bass and soften the highs.

Maybe the "right" SRA of the tip in the grooves compared to the original cut is irrelevant. Maybe all we're really doing by determining our preferred SRA or VTA settings is taming the particular sonic signatures of certain tonearm and cartridge combinations.

Nsgarch,

Good points. I pretty much followed your process, however I began with setting VTF on the low range. I'll begin experimenting with higher VTF's and resume the SRA testing.

Thanks.

Andrew