2. analog
  3. 1097129745

Is extremely accurate "VTA" adjustment necessary?

Here's a very interesting article by Geoff Husband of TNT on the importance (or better relative unimportance) of overly accurate VTA adjustment.

Exposing the VTA myth?

A short quote form the article:

Quote - "VTA, or Vertical Tracking Angle is one of those topics that divides opinion...That 'VTA' matters is indisputable, but the purpose of this article is to examine the validity of the claims made for the relative importance of VTA...SRA/VTA matters of course, but in the real world not THAT much, rigidity, simplicity and lateral alignment are all more important"

What are your thought and comments on this issue?
restock
psychicanimal
1,738 posts
 
Thomas is back...and Raoul hasn't followed my prescription!

Raoul, not to defend Dougdeacon--he hasn't asked for help--but I am surprised at all he's improved in such little time. That he's obsessive, yes he is. He goes into an area that's against my ethics. My TT has *on the fly* VTA adjustment and I just did an average setting. Raoul, you *need* to do the internal cleansing and the ocean wash--for real.

Thomas brings an excellent point regarding digital. Feeling blackmailed by e-Bay and surfrace noise I took a serious effort to make my digital rig sound really good, even though the majority of my recordings ( 3 out of 4 ) were vinyl. The effort payed off beyoncé my expectations.

And once more, Thomas hit it right on the money with the Azimuth adjustment. That's the real critical adjustment and all protractors do is give a little mirror and wish you success...

***
dougdeacon
3,338 posts
 
PsychicAnimal,
Agree with you and Thomas about azimuth. Yes, we're learning, thanks for the props. As for who's obsessive, oh never mind! Trying to teach the VA crowd about belt drive digital? I was ROFL.

We're part owner of a Wally Analog Shop, which let us measure electrically what our eyes and ears told us about our old cartridge. An off-line cantilever and twisted motor make for lousy imaging and seperation. (Duh!) About 8-9db of crosstalk. Ouch.

New cartridge
Set up by eye on the mirror
First measurement with Wally: 0.5db
One tweak just for kicks: 0.2db
Is that okay? :-)

That cleansing and full body purge seems like good advice. Would RRL solutions help? I'd gladly spare the man a bottle or two.
dr_balance
16 posts
 
I completely agree with the article. I also want to mention people go wayyyyyy to crazy with obsessing over VTA
newbee
4,751 posts
 
While I have nothing substantive to add to this dialog I would think that anyone who wants their LP's to sound as good or better than CD's, and uses a line stylus, would have to pay close attention to VTA on a record by record basis. :-)
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
With any pivoting arm, the effect of azimuth variation and skating force variation over the playing area of an LP will swamp out any effect of VTA variation between LPs. If you are serious about vinyl, get a linear tracking arm.
More to discover