Table/Cart Set Up - By Ear or Test Record?

Hey, Phil. Thanks for the props, lol. I guess I agree with you (duh!).

When learning it is helpful to see hard metrics provided by various tools. For azimuth I was once part-owner of a Wally Analog Shop, which measures crosstalk. It worked and the measurements demonstrated with numbers what each adjustment did.

A fellow Wally co-owner (a veteran A'goner now long absent, "4yanx") told me he didn't bother with the Wally any longer because he could do it by ear just as well. Sure enough, once I tried... so could I. Thus was born a proselytizer. :-)

VTF was easier. I happen to have a hyper-responisive cartridge and differences of .01g are audible even to people who aren't familiar with our system. Raul once paid us a visit. When I moved one O-ring on my Triplanar by less than its own thickness he nearly jumped off the sofa from the change in dynamics.

VTA/SRA was easiest. Paul can hear those changes from two rooms away. If I get it wrong he yells at me. ;-)

Etc.

By ear: slower, meticulous, learned more, great sound.

As your ears and brain gain experience you'll find it goes faster. That's the cool part about learning.

Of course sometimes we forget. Dan_Ed and I once stuggled with magnifiers and lights for 45 minutes trying to visually set SRA on an Ortofon A-90. Good luck seeing the contact line on that stylus! I gave up, threw the tools aside and just stood by the TT adjusting by ear. In under 3 minutes we nailed it to the satisfaction of four experienced listeners, including my never satisfied partner. Kicked myself around the room for wasting 45 minutes of listening time.

Always learning!

Using a test record to achieve none or minimal distortion in the channels, I had to turn the anti-skating up signficantly. When I did this, it dramtically affected rhythm and pace and tactility of the bass. The pace was diminished and bass became ill defined and muddy. Conversely when setting anti-skate by ear, I used much less, almost none. Pace was great and bass was tactile and firm.

Bingo. Note, excessive A/S sounds a lot like excessive VTF.

VTF: Using tracking challenges on test records I set VTF to just above where mistracking would occur. I found the VTF to be much higher with test record calibration than when I would set it by ear (For Dyna XV-1s: test record 2.125 grams; for ear 1.935 grams). By my ears, I had no mistracking at 1.935 grams and more air and three-dimensional sound compared to the higher VTF that test record results would suggest.

Bingo again. Next challenge, try tweaking VTF for different LP's. Easier to track passages should be playable with lower VTFs than hard to track passages. You may find you get even more microdynamics, air and dimensionality with lower settings, until you go so low that bass solidity and dynamics suffer (or mistracking occurs). Borderline settings may not be useable on your tougher tracking records but they may bring additional life to the easy ones.

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Actusreus has a point of course. OTOH, I'm acutely conscious of specific sonic parameters when making adjustments. I don't recall ever posting that VTF, SRA, anti-skating, etc. should be adjusted based on what I or anyone "likes". Nor have I ever posted that I adjust anything based on how "bright" or "dark" or (gack!) "musical" it sounds. Those terms don't begin to describe what I hear.

Example: some people describe SRA too high as sounding "too bright". Not I. I hear harmonics occuring too early relative to their fundamental. Paul hears a non-congruence of the various frequencies which make up a sound, causing temporal displacements and diminished dynamics - which is saying much the same thing. Frank Schroeder describes the same thing I do. None of us would use a wishy-washy, subjective term like "bright" to describe such a detailed sonic event.

I think it was Fremer, or one of those guys who suggest setting antiskate by watching what the needle does when you set it down on the album. You want no movement either way when it sets down. Works for me. Thanks for the write-up. Nothing like real experience.

Dougdeacon, I have been considering your statement about hearing what I would call phase coherence, ie. hearing the harmonics early compared to the fundamental frequency. I find that remarkable and am still wondering what that would sound like. I'm trying to picture how the stylus position moving a couple of degrees one way or the other would affect frequency vs. phase angle. Have you ever seen a plot of data like that? I'm not disputing it, maybe I am not sensitive enough to notice or maybe if I had the chance to hear the difference it would be a learning experience for me.
btw- brightness is a term listed in Audiophile glossary of terms. Dull can also be found in those glossaries. Here is an exerpt from Stereophile's list of definitions:
"bright, brilliant The most often misused terms in audio, these describe the degree to which reproduced sound has a hard, crisp edge to it. Brightness relates to the energy content in the 4kHz-8kHz band. It is not related to output in the extreme-high-frequency range. All live sound has brightness; it is a problem only when it is excessive. "
Maybe what I consider bright is the SRA such that the sound is thin due to reduced bass and then too much SRA the other way makes the sound dull. I have also experienced a sibilance when SRA is off which I considered as being much too bright. Perhaps that is not the correct description. And perhaps that is the phase coherence that I never considered before.

Align it with test record, protractor, whatever to begin with and then adjust to taste. I don't claim to be an expert but have been doing it 50 years now. Experts differ on just about every aspect of alignment. SRA for example; some say the arm should always be level, Van den Hul recommends the arm be higher at the pivot, some of us like it lower at the pivot. In any case the cartridge is only one element of the system and will interact in a different manner with different gear so absolute prescriptions seem a waste of time to me.