Cadenza Bronze on a Fatboy


I have a question about how close the bottom of my Ortofon Cadenza Bronze is to the surface of the record. I’m using a VPI prime signature with the fatboy gimbal arm. I have used a Wally reference jig to perfectly set the arm level to the platter. After mounting the cartridge there is barely a gap between the record surface and the cartridge body. Is this normal? It’s not rubbing. 

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Following a procedure I saw on YT (by Ortofon), I get the cantilever roughly right as a way of getting the SRA in the ballpark. Then I can do the more fiddly photos of the stylus itself to get that adjusted as close to 92 as I can. Then I go and change it all after listening to it!

It is normal for the Cadenza series and that’s why I would never own one. It is simply a poor design to have the heel ride so close to the playing surface when properly set up. Try playing a warped record at 45 rpm and see if it makes repeated contact with the LP. 

Not sure why anyone would play a warped record at 45 RPM on a $2,000 cartridge but maybe that's just me.  I have used a Cadenza Bronze on my VPI Prime (standard arm) for 2 years and play exclusively older records from the 50s-60s and never had a problem. 

@dsockel My point is that doing so will illustrate the fundamental design flaw in the Cadenza series—that the heel of the cartridge rides far too close to the record surface when properly set up and only gets worse when adjusting VTA toward tail down. Why should the end user have to forgo playing warped LPs anyhow? The situation is similar to folks who pay gobs of money for a 911 Porsche without understanding basic vehicle dynamics—the weight of the engine is behind the rear wheels making the car prone to excessive oversteer at best and loss of control at worst when cornering at speed. You can’t fight the physics on this one which is why a midengine car or front engine with a transaxle (all else being equal) will run a 911 off the road. I’ll duck out here and let the 911 fans pile on!