VTF and VTA- Constant or not?

Hi, Doug,

The only "proof" we require is that instruments and voices sound as real as possible.

Very good point. We can only be sure when a piano sounds like a piano, a cymbal sounds like a cymbal, and vocals sounds like somebody is singing live in front of you. Our musical perception should be established with our experience with live (esp.classical) concerts with mainly acoustic instruments, instead of based upon someone's top-notch audio system. Live performance always come first, audio system second or third. Life without live (concerts) could be a big mistake for any serious audiophile.

If you value set and forget and also value optimal performance, go to live concerts or play from digital sources.

The digital sources that could satisfy me are far too expensive than the vinyl setup!!! It seems I have to at least spend 3-5 times more...Esoteric? No way! dCS? Maybe...sorry, I'd rather buy an Audi A4 Quattro S-tronics and a couple of nice MC carts;)

Is ZYX UNIverse really that good, Doug? So many A'goners have one or two in their system. Is the Copper version(ending with "-X") the best? I just saw your article on fine-tuning ZYX's cart. It is really interesting...

Dan

Doug,
What would happen to the data on your post-it notes if you changed arm, cartridge, or table?
This thought has always kept me from adopting a similar system.

Cheers.

Tom

It's unlikely any "topnotch" audio system could come close to live, acoustic instruments, so I agree that would be a poor yardstick. I haven't personally heard any digital that matches our vinyl, though to be fair our vinyl front end cost more than those digital rigs you mentioned. There's no way to do what you described on the cheap. :-(

To our ears the UNIverse is still the most invisible cartridge we've never heard, though also the most finicky. It will play like a Strad, but only if you know how to let it. Its sweet spots are 10X smaller than any other cartridge I've used and the falloff in performance is rapid if you miss anything. If you want fun, this is it. ;-)

We haven't heard all the contenders of course, but we've not heard more lifelike reproduction from any other cart. See the review by my signature, several years old but we wouldn't change much if anything, except to add to the list of carts that can't touch it. Too bad it's discontinued and the remaining stock dwindling. Transfiguration Orpheus LO and Dyna XV-1S are pretty good too, and more easily available.

The copper coil, low output version is definitely the UNIverse to have (true of any ZYX). Other versions give up speed and dynamics or impose a Koetsu-like smoothation on the music, and we don't want to hear that. If I hear a component altering waveforms then it's unacceptable no matter how "musical" somebody thinks it sounds.

Similarly, fellow A'goner Mothra once said our preamp (which he now also has) is the only preamp he's never heard. That was lofty praise from a professional recording engineer and musician who's owned 20+ other good preamps and dumped them all. He defined what we're after in every component: nothing. So did the preamp's designer, Nick Doshi, whose signature phrase is "Enjoy music, tolerate equipment". Not bad for an engineer!

We're also classical listeners. Our acid test recordings are mostly our 100's of original/authentic instrument LP's by the likes of Hogwood, Harnoncourt, Scimone, etc. Harnoncourt's 70 LP survey of the Bach cantatas is particularly unforgiving of system eccentricities. Those records go from a glorious and intimate humanity to fingernails-on-slate in a heartbeat if a system isn't just right. They've embarassed some very pricey components visiting our home. I played one in another guy's system just once. He said it was the worst recording he'd ever heard. Little does he know that his system, which cost 3X what ours does, is just screwed up. ;-)

Doug

Dougdeacon already covered the set-up details extensively, but let me add that the correct VTF in a given cartridge defines the correct position of the cantilever (= the coils in the magnetic field) towards the magnet(s) and that the correct SRA/VTA is always a matter of the position of the polished area of the stylus towards the grooved wall.
That means ultimately that the VTA/SRA has to be groove-compliant - its a direct result of the cutting angle of the respective record. So it should be set with each record independently.
Painstaking sometimes.

What would happen to the data on your post-it notes if you changed arm, cartridge, or table?
This thought has always kept me from adopting a similar system.

Quite right, Tom. Each data point is rendered obsolete by such changes, and by some others too. Our belt and battery improvements also resulted in small arm height changes, which of course I've recorded. The post-it notes on the LP's with the lengthiest data trails have about a dozen height numbers (and counting!).

However, and importantly, "obsolete" does not imply "useless". Such changes in optimal arm height are:
1) accurately cumulative with each other, and
2) consistent across all LP's.
IOW, if a new cart needs the TriPlanar's height to be 2.57 turns higher, and a subsequent change needs the arm .10 lower, I can play an LP that was last played before those two changes by moving the arm 2.57 - .10 = 2.47 higher than the last data point on that LP. All I need is a master list of height changes and an identifier next to the last data point on the LP note, so I know the currency of its last data point. Once I dial it in precisely (by listening) I record an updated point on that LP.

Even if I bring out an LP I haven't played for several years (and multiple equipment changes ago) I just add up the height adjustments since the last data point on that LP. Voila! I've just dialed in arm height on an LP last played several "systems" ago. This typically gets us within .05 or .10 on the TP's height scale, in mere seconds. Fine-tuning the precise new setting (which we record to the nearest ~.01) can be done whilst enjoying the music.

Record keeping sounds boring, but it eases the optimization of our playing and listening experience so much that I wouldn't give it up. Paul is fantastically sensitive to this adjustment (among others) so "close counts" is not an option for us. We actually chose the TP over a Schroeder Ref in 2004 primarily because we foresaw the value of this and the Schroeder lacks a height scale. (The TP was also $2K cheaper, but I've probably spent that in post-it notes - LOL.)

I'm sure it sounds uber-OCD, but Dan_Ed, Swampwalker, Nick Doshi, Raul and others have watched me do it and heard the results. I think they'd attest to how simple and effective it is. Of course they still don't bother with it themselves, so take that FWIW! ;-)

***

Relative to what Dertonarm just (correctly) posted, all the above is contingent on playing your cartridge at absolutely optimal VTF (to the nearest .01g at least, we adjust much more finely than that - every day). Most cartridge suspensions soften with age and use, so VTF needs to be reduced accordingly. When our current UNIverse was new it needed ~1.70g. Today (2+ years later) it plays optimally (better in fact) at ~1.20g. That is not a typo.

If you don't do this, everything I wrote about arm height/SRA optimization is useless.

Plug 'n' play? Not quite!