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Is extremely accurate "VTA" adjustment necessary?

Here's a very interesting article by Geoff Husband of TNT on the importance (or better relative unimportance) of overly accurate VTA adjustment.

Exposing the VTA myth?

A short quote form the article:

Quote - "VTA, or Vertical Tracking Angle is one of those topics that divides opinion...That 'VTA' matters is indisputable, but the purpose of this article is to examine the validity of the claims made for the relative importance of VTA...SRA/VTA matters of course, but in the real world not THAT much, rigidity, simplicity and lateral alignment are all more important"

What are your thought and comments on this issue?
restock

Showing 4 responses by newbee

newbee
4,794 posts
 
Dr Balance, Believe me you are blessed in not being able to hear improperly set VTA. Do you listen a lot to CD's?
newbee
4,794 posts
 
While I have nothing substantive to add to this dialog I would think that anyone who wants their LP's to sound as good or better than CD's, and uses a line stylus, would have to pay close attention to VTA on a record by record basis. :-)
newbee
4,794 posts
 
Romy the Cat is the moniker of someone who posted often at Audio Asylym (an other places). He was very knowledgable however most of what he wanted to share was his opinion of you and your beliefs - always negative, demeaning, and provocative. Some felt that his demeanor should be tolerated because his knowledge occasionally added something worthwhile. His lack of civility ultimately got him permanently banned.
newbee
4,794 posts
 
Re Gandy's comments regarding the Rega - Wasn't one of the downsides of using a Rega TT/Arm was that there was no provision for simple repeatible adjustible VTA? If so, has anyone questioned Gandy's motive for the white paper?

It is obvious (I think even to Gandy) that setting VTA is critical to proper set-up. That proper VTA, once VTA is initially established, it is a moving target, dependible on many external issues, such as record thickness and tracking force changes for a couple of examples, doesn't mean that that you should ignore improving the VTA completely. For example I have used different TT mats with different thicknesses to compensate for different thicknesses of the record. I've even cheated by changing the tracking force a tad as well when I had a disc that needed a touch up.

Then I had an arm with VTA adjustible of the fly. The only problem, or risk if you will, of having the latter is if you become so anal about getting the perfect alignment that you spend all your time running between you listening chair and the TT adjusting VTA. Close can be good enuf, for me anyway! :-)

What I read into this fact sheet was nothing more than a rational for completely ignoring the issue, ergo the rational for buying a Rega TT.

FWIW.
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