VTA and HTA overhang


I was adjusting VTA on my tonearm tonight and out of curiosity decided to check how it effected the overhang according to my MINT LP protractor. To my surprise, very small changes to VTA on my 12" arm are quite noticeable when trying to align my stylus to the arc on my alignment protractor.

My question is to all of you who change VTA for each LP. How do you compensate or adjust for the resulting change in Horizontal Tracking Angle (HTA) or overhang each time you change your VTA setting?

Besides the hassle of adjusting VTA for different LPs, this is another reason I don't fuss with VTA once I have found a good setting for the majority of my LPs. I wonder if those who attribute sonic differences to VTA changes are not also hearing slight changes to alignment which surely effects the sonics.
peterayer
The only way the offset would not move when adjusting VTA up or down is if the tonearm post was curved.

The Eminent Technology ET 2 tonearm has a curved post for this exact reason. The part is called the arc block or VTA block. The arc block is stationary and the bearing housing rides the arc of the arc block as VTA is adjusted to keep overhang dead on.
Sarcher30, I didn't mean to imply that you took a position, that you really didn't. I should have addressed my last comment to "anyone who". Sorry.
As far as the various alignments, you still have them mixed up. Baerwald goes for even error at beginning, middle and end. Loefgren B has least total error. Maybe description on VE is confusing, but nevertheless.
Regards,
Fleib, I'm not confused. Yes Lofgren B has the least average distortion. But Lofgren B also has the most max distortion. Meaning that at the beginning and the end of the LP the distortion is higher than the other alignments but in the middle of the LP the distortion is lower than the other alignments. It's a compromise.

We are not really saying different things. We are just expressing it differently.

From what I've read the distortion gets higher towards the inner grooves because of the tighter radius. It seems to me that you want to minimize distortion at the end of the record. Lofgren B has the most distortion at the inner and outter grooves. I would think this should be avoided unless you are playing discs that have no music on the inner gooves. Like most of the newer 12" 45's I have gotten. I also have some double LP's that don't use much of the inner grooves either.
Ketchup, I was not aware of that feature on the ET arms. Very interesting.

Some say that the tracking error of linear arms is actually more than pivoted arms because of the higher horizontal effective mass. This causes the cantilever to deflect more than is optimal and creates tracking error.

I don't own a linear tracker so I have no personal experience with that. At the last RMAF I spoke with Peter Ledermann of Soundsmith. With his new Hyperion cartridge there is an option for a suspension optimized for linear trackers. Horizontal compliance is lowered while the vertical compliance stays the same. This stops the cantilever from deflecting too far. This in turn lowers distortion. This sounds like a good idea. I'm not sure if that option is available for his lower end carts though?
Sarcher, That's better. Maybe it was use of terms, not sure.

Anyway, "The people that try to get the perfect SRA for every record must believe that it's more important than perfect alignment. I doubt there are many people that would go to the trouble of adjusting overhang for every record as well."

I know that's taken out of context, but that perception was what I was addressing by statements about percentage of records needing correction, and viability of resultant alignments. If SRA is set for 92, then additional SRA angle results in less overhang from raising the arm. It's true that angle changes slightly but less overhang would put a Baerwald alignment a hair closer to Stevenson. A small change in height results in a much smaller change in overhang, depending on eff length, plus most records don't need correcting.

After many thousands of records, it's a trade-off I might make to optimize SQ. Hence the popularity of on-the-fly adjusters. The only problem with some of them, is they compromise mounting integrity. Some linear arms are a particular problem with respect to changing SRA, those with a short arm tube.
Regards,