Mint LP a no go – now what?

I should have been a litle more specific as to how this played out. I want to be clear that VPI did indeed provide the arm to spindle distance, the overhang and the amount of adjustability. When Yip plugged this information into his formula (Barewald algorithm), the degree of adjustment allowed by my set up was insufficient for things to work out. I'm afraid this is far over my head as to the principles involved.

In looking at information as to the Wally, I note this same algorithm (and optionally another one) is used. I can't help but wonder why the Wally would work and the Mint wouldn't.

As suggested by Johnbrown, I contacted Steve at The Analog Dept. He is sending me his protractor for the 12.5 arm - I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Oddly enough, there seems to be some variation in the measured numbers - which wouldn't seem to make a lot of sense. Although it may become apparent that the VPI system is preferable, I'm curious enough to try an alternative or two. If nothing else it will be interesting to see what set up changes another system results in.

I wanted to post a follow up to the previous comments. I took Johnbrown's advice and contacted Steve at the Analog Dept. He was great to deal with and he had a protractor on hand for my 12.5 arm. He sent it the next day and I received it a couple days later.

I spent about an hour with the protractor yesterday. Definitely a fussy process. I had taken a fair amount of time several weeks ago setting up a new cartridge using the VPI instructions, and I was convinced that I had it pretty well dialed in. When I started using Steve's protractor it quickly became evident that I was off - and by quite a substantial margin. I probably moved my cartridge back in the head shell at least 1/16 of an inch -likely just shy of 2mm??? Once I did that it was just a matter of fine adjustment to align the two primary points on the protractor. The cantilever on my cartridge (a Dynavector XV 1s) is pretty exposed so care is required, but it made it easy to set the zenith. I then went through the tracking force, lateral, VTA, rechecking, etc.

As soon as I put on the first record I must say that the change was awesome! Clearly, the set up process using Steve's protractor definitely made an audible difference - and for the positive. Everything is better focused and sounds much cleaner - less distortion I presume. Anyway, well worth the hour I spent on it.

Johnbrown - thanks for pointing out this alternative. I don't know how the results would compare with a Mint, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.