Stylus Rake Angle

I think of it like this: If the fundamental is being obscured by the harmonics, the harmonics are arriving too early. I hear this when the arm is too low in the back. If the fundamental occurs unnaturally early, or there appears to be a minute lag before you hear the harmonics after the fundamental, then the arm is too high.

This is roughly how Doug described it to me and it corresponds to what I hear. I can see how this could be described as a tonal shift or emphasis between the high and low frequencies.

This is exactly what my experience is. Let's say we're starting at 90 degrees. If you guys claim you will see a change in overhang from a minute SRA adjustment, Because that's all it takes to go from one side to the other, then it's an inherent fault of the system because of the vinyl. The only way this can be overcome is by incorporating an adjustment to raise and lower the platter itself. However, this still does not deal with the tooling issue. But I'm not so sure that this is relevant to playback.

Dear Lewm: I posted here:

++++ " IMHO DYNAMICS is the main live MUSIC characteristic......... Precision, definition, accuracy, velocity and natural coloration and agresiveness are part of changes on dynamics........ Rythmum is another characteristic of live music. Dynamics affect it. " ++++

Main part of that dynamics is related to transient performance ( as Csontos posted. ) and time decay and part of that transient response is related to stylus-groove contact where VTA/SRA as azymuth, overhang and cartridge owns tracking habilities define it quality level.

Now, when all those cartridge/tonearm parameters are in " perfect " relationship in the set up: you just will know it even if you don't know nothing about " fundamental, harmonics or timing " but know how live music sounds in a near field experiences.

Of course that we can't even the near field live MUSIC event because in a live MUSIC event there is nothing that " filter "/degrade/modified/obstacle in between you and the MUSIC source but the AIR. Here is the magic!

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

None of you explained the mechanism, only why it is a good thing. I agree it is a good thing. After thinking about it last night (what I do in the dark before sleep), I decided maybe it has to do with how music is encoded in the groove vis how the stylus contacts the groove and is thus able to translate physical undulations in the groove into an audio signal. The relation between the stylus geometry and those undulations might be the critical factor. I could imagine how that might effect what some would call "timing". But I don't think it's really timing by the formal definition of same.

Also, I commend you (plural) and anyone else who can confidently distinguish first order harmonic tones from the fundamental. As a (part-time amateur) singer, I can tell you that is no easy thing even in a live venue. The brain doesn't really care a lot about that first octave of tonal difference. (Why sometimes if my pianist starts out an octave too high, I will go right along with him, until I realize that the high notes are going to be out of my vocal range.)

Good 'transient' performance is always easily distinguishable from poor transient performance. It really is the final goal and distinguishable difference we hear when successfully correcting set-up errors. It's not a matter of our ability to isolate first order harmonics when timing is right. It's a matter of the natural ability of our brain to recognize when it's not. It's when we hear the difference that we then recognize correct timing in comparison.