Best tonearm position for VTA?

Eureka! It's all about methodology! I went over to VA and did a search on VTA postings by jnhvac just as DougDeacon suggested. I found a post where jnhvac describes his method of starting with the cartridge level with respect to the record surface, then lowering from that position about 5 or 6 playing cards. (Real precision measurements here!) Next you start raising the arm 1 card at a time until you get the air around the instruments and the soundstage opens.

This method has worked very well for me tonight with my 103r. Listening to Jean Luc-Ponty's Enigmatic Ocean I can hear every cymbal at a distinctly differenct location. All instruments have much more presence in the room. The most dramatic impact is how the instruments just off center can clearly be heard adding to the sounds. That's the spot I remember stumbling on to with the Glider. Now I believe I have a methodology to re-create this with another cartridge.

Not to put down what is on the Walker page, but I think the talk of lowering the arm until the bass goes heavy was just to much for my pea-size brain to deal with. I understand what they are trying to relate, but it really is all about the presence of the instruments in the room and not the tonal balance, just as you guys have said. You guys keep talking, it will eventually sink into my thick skull!

I can't wait until my Graham tonearm cable shows up so I can mount that 2.2 and really get some precision adjustments!

Just checking back in.I have found as a previous poster mentioned that a tail-down(2-3mm)start does have rewards.Better to start 'fatter'with more bass and then you can hear it approaching some sort of focus as you raise the tail I think.I am into using my ears for the VTF as well.At the moment I use an end track on the first side of the Bluesbreakers album.A drum solo,cymbals and drums can be quite clearly heard changing with weight.

Couple of meaningless thoughts.

#1 "WHEW"--That is ALWAYS my expression after reading a FRIGGIN "QUOTED" comment by "YOU" towards me DOUG!I'm so conditioned(probably by my third grade teacher,in her criticism)that I always think you are about to "BLAST" me when you do that!!NO PROB,though!!

#2 Rnm4--I think you are taking this Fluff thing a bit too far.Of course Strauss was a SERIOUS DUDE,but in the context taken,DOUG was IMOAITOOMF(in my opinion and in the opinion of my friends,second hand clapping?Cello?)really being complementary.I love this piece,but in the overall context of the Classical Genre,it is "LIGHT",and I love it!!

#3 PLAYING CARDS?This hobby is getting more "rediculously" technical than a LEICA RANGEFINDER!!

#4 This "tail up vs down" may have applied more to Howard Hughes's style of flying a plane,with Kate Hepburn on his lap.It is REDICULOUS to talk it to death in vta!!My TRANSFIGURATION TEMPER-V(UNIV. WORTHY I MIGHT ADD)needs,DEMANDS a large backslope of the armtube.Do you know how I found this out?I actually tried a TON of differing variations,and never once came up with any kind of a straight flush!!FORGET THE TECHNICAL CRAP,AND LEARN BY TRIAL AND ERROR HERE!YOU WON'T DAMAGE YOUR CARTRIDGE,AND YOU WILL BECOME MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE!!

When you actually attempt to learn about what you are doing,in this sometimes frustrating hobby,you get a REALLY COOL by product--you SAVE MONEY!!YOU GET BETTER SOUND!!YOU ARE ACTUALLY HAPPY!!---well,maybe not as happy as those ZYX UNIV owners.

Sirspeedy, my comment about real precision measurements was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. I don't remember what arm you have but with the Vector the mounting cup just slides up and down when the set screw is loosened. It is very easy to move it too much either up or down, and sometimes not move it at all. The stack of playing cards provides a sort of poor man's micrometer, so it is much easier to get repeatable settings. For me that is paramount while learning to listen for the changes. I need some way to get repeatable changes to help convince myself that I am not imagining something I think I hear. Maybe once I've done this a few thousand times I'll know just by ear whether the arm needs to go up a gnat's whisker or a gnat's arm length. Yeah, I could spend the $800 on the Basis VTA adjuster and get this in a precision doo-dad, but the cards work well enough for now and the 2.2 will give me this.

Sirspeedy -- this is a little off thread but: When I see a certain U/N on a post, I definitely read it, or I never read it, depending. You belong to the former category. I don't always understand/agree with you, but your posts are often laced with a little humor; and you don't cling to knowledge as if you're never going to get any more!

But this morning, when I read the thing about the Leica Rangefinder, I laughed so hard I nearly sprayed coffee all over my keyboard!