VdH VTA setting preferences

No negative! What cartridge maker in their right mind would have you tilt their cartridge backwards to get the correct SRA?

Well, ask any Shelter owner!

I didn't have my Shelters loaded too low either. Besides, IME impedance loading and VTA/SRA have quite different effects on sound quality.

Impedance loading simply alters frequency response. Gross changes in VTA/SRA may alter frequency response, but it's the subtle adjustments that bring the sound to life. These integrate the time domain response of different frequencies without changing tonal balance at all. The effect is quite different from an impedance adjustment.

My experience with the vdH Frog has been identical to that described by Raquel above. Set up as recommended on the vdH web site with the pivot end slightly inclined, the cartridge sounded tipped up in the highs and emphasized surface noise. The sound was much better with VTA in the perfectly neutral position, and, when set up with the pivot end declined very slightly, IMO the sound was best. During my first round of these set-up experiments, I was using the VPI JMW-10 tonearm and the Lamm LP2 phono stage with a fixed impedance of 40 ohms. If anything, this impedance loading was too low for the Frog. which prefers a loading of about 500 ohms. In my latest round of experiments, I was using my SME IV tonearm and the Manley Steelhead phono stage. I experimented with impedance loading of 200 ohms and 400 ohms, and the pivot-end-declined set-up once again maximized the sound of the cartridge.

Unless any of you taildraggers would like to explain to me why it makes rational sense NOT to have your micro-ridge stylus fit the groove as the cutting head did when it cut the groove, you've got a lot of happy surprises in store once you accept the mechanical realities of the stylus/record interface.

Nsgarch, all I can tell you is what sounds better to me in my system. I don't have the technical depth to attempt to explain the reasons, but I know what I hear with this cartridge in my system. Technical explanations aside, it sounds like VPI has settled on the same set-up to optimize the sound of this cartridge to their preference. If, as you suggest, this set-up is causing the cartridge to track at an angle that is inconsistent with the angle of the cutting head, that is an interesting fact to know, but it does not change what I am hearing.

I can only second what Cincy_bob has added. It just sounds best this way to me.

FYI, I run my Frog into a Rowland Cadence loaded at 400 Ohms.