Stylus Rake Angle

In most of cases the stylus bay should be parallel to the surface of record. updowns should be very slight.

Although the setting the arm at the horizontal position by eye works for most arm/cartridge combos, isn't the advantage of using the microscope to set SRA come down to being able to set a good ballbark VTA for those cartridges that have more unusual cantilever/stylii angles or sylii with unusual sensitivity to SRA (micro line, shibata etc.)?

-Karl

I thought this SRA stuff was over the top but I am not so sure now. I track an old, re-tipped by Soundsmith, Koetsu rosewood signature fitted with an enhanced line contact (original Aeries 1 deck/arm). I read Fremner's article and even downloaded the original '81 article and thought it was worth trying. Previously I have always set the cartridge base to parallel and tweaked from there, usually ending up with the back of the arm a little lower. My system sounds quite good considering the components but some voices, etc. are still not quite right (ssssssss'ing/S's too emphasized occasionally/etc.). Cannot justify currently the price of the digital 'scope so I just did a crude check using a x30 illuminated jewelers loupe with the needle on a CD (so they ARE useful for something). As far as I could tell (and I do use microscopes routinely/microdissections) my SRA was >92o. I therefore lowered my arm significantly so the SRA seemed closer to ~90o (all guesstimates but possibly with a trained eye!) and low and behold the sound improved exactly as Fremner described: smoother more easy, natural sound BUT with more detail! For example I quite like/pretty familiar with the album "Survival of the Fittest" by the Headhunters (Herbie's backing band for his album amazingly called Headhunters!): on one slow track a shaker of some sort moves slowly from right to left producing 3 clear shakes, now I can "see" that shaker shaking clearly in space moving realistically across the soundstage- I was gobsmacked. The difference was minor but to my ears very significant. Now I cry even more when listening to the MFSL pressing of LIVE/DEAD. Everything now seems more psychedelic!(Fremner has used this term too- believable illusions).
So perhaps it might be worth trying it, even with a crappy x30 lens 'cos this crude guesstimate seems to have produced a significant improvement.

This is some good hints on setting VTA.

"Raise the VTA (raise the rear of the arm) and the highs will usually get better. Too much and you will lose the bass.
Lower the VTA and the bass will get stronger. Too much and you will lose the highs."

From:

http://walkeraudio.com/lloyd-walker-on-fine-tuning-your-turntable/

I have been playing with cartridge loading. It is interesting that I hear some of the same differences from loading changes as described above with VTA changes. Nothing ever seems easy. LOL

Bob

Karl_desch,

It's hard to imagine anyone designing a cartridge for something other than headshell-parallel-to-LP-surface. Why would they do that? It would restrict sales of their own product. Every tonearm on earth, even the wacky RS-A1, is designed to place the cartridge mounting surface parallel to the record.

This doesn't change with stylus profile. I have cartridges with all sorts of styli: conical, elliptical, micro-ridge. All sound best with the tonearm (fairly close to) level. A touch of tail up or tail down? Perhaps. But nothing extreme.

This makes Fremer's reported advice (in the OP) to jack the back of a tonearm up very high quite suspect. He either didn't say that or he wasn't thinking clearly when he did.

***

Peter,

Your recollection of what I hear when tweaking SRA was accurate. The most concise description I've heard was Frank Schroeder's, "Adjust for proper timing between fundamental and harmonics." He said that and moved on to another subject, as if he'd described everything we needed to know. And so he had.

If someone doesn't know what that sounds like, they need to get away from amplified music and listen to acoustic instruments in natural environments. It's easy to hear mis-timed harmonics in a mandolin or harpsichord pluck. Electic guitars are more congested. Tracker-action organs like the one E. Power Biggs built in Cambridge are easy, at least when played staccato. A Sears Silvertone? Not so much.

Of course the more resolving the cartridge and system, the easier this is to hear. Lower resolution setups may not reproduce enough audible harmonic information. If they do, they may smear things enough so that timing shifts actually do sound like a change in frequency balance. This may account for different descriptions of what people hear when adjusting arm height.