Mint LP a no go – now what?

I wanted to post a follow up to the previous comments. I took Johnbrown's advice and contacted Steve at the Analog Dept. He was great to deal with and he had a protractor on hand for my 12.5 arm. He sent it the next day and I received it a couple days later.

I spent about an hour with the protractor yesterday. Definitely a fussy process. I had taken a fair amount of time several weeks ago setting up a new cartridge using the VPI instructions, and I was convinced that I had it pretty well dialed in. When I started using Steve's protractor it quickly became evident that I was off - and by quite a substantial margin. I probably moved my cartridge back in the head shell at least 1/16 of an inch -likely just shy of 2mm??? Once I did that it was just a matter of fine adjustment to align the two primary points on the protractor. The cantilever on my cartridge (a Dynavector XV 1s) is pretty exposed so care is required, but it made it easy to set the zenith. I then went through the tracking force, lateral, VTA, rechecking, etc.

As soon as I put on the first record I must say that the change was awesome! Clearly, the set up process using Steve's protractor definitely made an audible difference - and for the positive. Everything is better focused and sounds much cleaner - less distortion I presume. Anyway, well worth the hour I spent on it.

Johnbrown - thanks for pointing out this alternative. I don't know how the results would compare with a Mint, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

The vinylengine site on JMW arms states 262mm spindle to pivot distance for 10.5i. That is not even close on my Aries 3.

I measured it myself and it matched Yip's number. The Tractor does sound great but I think the VPI jig has it's own sound which is good as well.

It is impossible to align the cartridge without a mirrored protractor. The reason is that, without being able to align the line with its mirror image you cannot know if you are looking vertically down on the cantilever as opposed to one or other side of it. If you are looking slightly to the side the cartridge could be perfectly aligned but will look out or vice versa.

Holly cow! A thread resurrected after two years! Does the OP even care at this point? If he/she does, I have a Classic and used both the Mint and the VPI jig to set up the cartridge and honestly would not worry too much about not being able to have a Mint for the set-up. The Mint is designed to decrease the distortion between the null points (across the record) while the VPI jig to decease it in the last 1/3 of the record, according to Mike at VPI. I indeed verified it with a few records and currently have the VPI jig set-up and enjoy the sound tremendously. I don't think it's something worth losing sleep over.

I just re-read this and you know the odd thing, is that for each turntable I have owned, I bought a MintLP (or once a Wally Tractor, which came after MONTHS and MONTHS of waiting) and they are great to set up any specific tonearm. But with the Classic, when I got the MintLP tractor, I was shocked, that it was DEAD ON already. I didn't loosen the screws thank God. I wanted check where we were to start, so I put the cartridge on the null points to start and man, how lucky was that?!