VdH VTA setting preferences

Nsgarch,

Thanks for the excellent quotation from Nakatsuka-san. As you and he said, the contact edges of the playback stylus must be oriented as precisely as possible to the angle of the original cutting stylus, particularly with these new styli. Every ZYX I've had in my system (seven different models from the Airy 2 upwards) has played best with the cartridge body very close to level. This has in turn resulted in an SRA just slightly forward of vertical.

One variable you haven't mentioned is variation in cutting angles. As I'm sure you know, the industry standard for VTA was not established until well into the LP era, and even then it was not always followed. With very sensitive cartridges like the ones being discussed on this thread best sound can only be attained by adusting arm height for each LP. (In fact, we have one or two LP's whose master lacquers for each side were cut at different angles. We have to adjust arm height when flipping the record - oy!)

Whether adjusting for each LP is worth the bother is an individual choice of course, but there's no question it's beneficial. For us it's a matter of necessity. On most records my partner cannot tolerate SRA being off even a little. (Remember the princess and the pea?!) Setting SRA visually, even with a magnifier, would only get us in the ballpark.

Dgad,

Using a CD to adjust SRA/VTA might help your ears learn the basics, but it must ultimately be an unsatisfactory method for a number of reasons.

1) Mastering of CD and LP are often different.

2) As I mentioned above, cutting stylus angle varies from record to record. Therefore, maintaining the "perfect" contact angles so excellently described by Nsgarch necessitates resetting arm height for each LP. No CD can help with that.

3) Frequency balance only changes with coarse VTA/SRA adjustments. Fine adjustments change the time-domain response of different frequencies without altering their overall balance. This is the fine-tuning Lloyd Walker mentions in his second step.

Again, whether one chooses to take this last step is a personal choice. If you do, then Nsgarch's starting point (SRA very slightly positive) is a fine place to begin. After that it's a matter of listening and adjusting. The range of arm height changes at this stage is very small. Moving our arm up or down .007" will take us on or off the sweet spot.

Doug, thanks for your support. Your are right of course about various cutter settings and record thicknesses affecting the optimum SRA for any given record.

I only wish I had your arm (I mean your tonearm!) so I could make slight adjustments on the fly. Just try that with an SME V -- or better yet, don't!

Excellent discussion Nsgarch and Dougdeacon. I'm right there with you.
.

Dear Dgad: +++++ " VdH recommends 200 ohms. I can play w. resistors. I started w. 200. It was smooth but closed in. " +++++

If the VTF and SRA were right on target and the Condor was already " broke-in " and you have that closed in sound: that could means a mismatch with the tonearms or a problem somewhere ( any link ) in your audio system/chain or an out of cartridge specs: not the load impedance.

Dr. Van denHul always gives a load impedance range and the optimal load impedance figure and in your cartridge is: 200 ohms, so this is the value that you must to use. I respect the Nsgarch advice about but he is not the designer so he does not which one is the optimal value: only Dr. Van denHul.

As I already post in other threads please don't use the cartridge load impedance like an " equalizer " to improve the sound when ther are deficiencies on the audio system. The closed in sound tell you that you have problems in your audio system : try to find it not to hide it through the use of the wrong load impedance.

With my Colibri I use the Dr. Van denHul load impedance advise and the VTA is slightly negative: this was too a Van denHul advise, I'm using the Colibri through a Breur/Brinkman tonearm like: the Sumiko MDC 800, great match.

The best we can do is to ask to the manufacturer.

Btw, Jan Allaerts told me that the VTA for my MC2 Finish has to be a little ( 1 mm ) on the positive way and he is right, he too is extremly critical about load impedance on his cartridges: 845 Ohms and the VTF no more than 0.05 gr of the optimal value and he is right here too.

Don't be nuts about VTA for each record: I agree with Raquel about. Btw, all the LP are convexs, this means that even in the same LP the VTA changes through the LP. So why take all those time to fix the VTA/SRA with each record instead to take that time to enjoy the music on our LP's?

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Raul, according to the vdH website, the recommended load for the .35mV Condor is 500 ohms, not 200 ohms, and 500 ohms is within the suggested range. In any case, the "optimal" value will not be exactly the same in each system because of the difference in tonearm cable impedance and the effective impedance of the circuitry of the phono preamp (or the impedance of the step-up transformer if you are using one.)

That is why it's important to have a mathematical method to determine a working range (a high load limit and a low load limit for each cartridge) and then to have a reliable way to hear when the load is a little too high or a little too low, or just right.