Who tweaks VTF too?
I can't say why it took many years for me to suddenly arrive at this point -- although I can identify the precipitating occurance as actually being mistake I made (as I suppose is often the case with many discoveries, large and small) -- but I've recently opened my ears to the practice of tweaking VTF for each record played, to very worthwhile effect. Generally within a range of up to about +.15 above the upper limit of the cartridge manufacturer's recommended setting of 1.35g-1.5g for my medium-compliance, line-contact MC cart -- i.e., up to 1.65g or anywhere in between, depending on the record being played, in about .025g increments.
Tracking a bit heavier accentuates the lower frequencies and tames the higher ones, for records that could use more weight or solidity and/or a reduction in gleam or glare or airy-fairyness, while tracking lighter does the opposite for records that sound overly thick or could use some opening-up (within the bounds of maintaining good groovewall contact, of course -- I never even run in the bottom half of the recommended range, much less below it). This minor revelation has helped significantly to increase my listening satisfaction with records I formerly would've just chalked-up as being slightly but irretrievably problematic, whether that problem might have been a subtly annoying touch of glassiness or peakiness or lightness in the loafers.
Each recording seems to have its own sweet spot balancing control, tonality, timbre and texture (within my system context), and after doing this individual fine-tuning procedure for a few weeks I've now started to intuit appropriate setting adjustments as needed, based on a record's initial sound and my growing experience with the outcomes. So I've definitely crossed over the proverbial Rubicon regarding tracking force and no longer regard the recommended range as inviolable, or VTF generally as a set-and-forget, one-size-fits-all proposition whose 'correct' value is predetermined, to be temporarily increased only in the event that dynamic-trackability difficulties are encountered. It's another thing to be tweaked! But also one of the easiest and quickest to do (at least with my tonearm -- I guess with some others maybe not so much). Anybody out there with me on this?
