SMEV set up problem....help needed

SME V is a great tonearm (I've had mine for 20 years) but hard to adjust VTA -- and impossible to do it "on the fly" (while the record is playing.) SME can be excused a little bit, because the arm was designed before the era of line contact styli; and with spherical or elliptical styli, matching the stylus rake angle to the groove cutting head angle was not critical.

If you want to do it correctly, study this thread:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1140840022&openmine&Nsgarch&4&5&st0
It's a bit tedious, but not difficult -- be patient, take your time, and use the recommended tools. And rest assured an SME V will hold it's settings forever!

Regardless of the type of tonearm you have, dozens of Agonners have set their VTA (actually SRA) this way with great results. It's really the only way to take into account the variations in stylus mounting, even among cartridges of the same make and model.
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Hi Axel, the three items you mention are all factors, but I take question the degree (literally and figuratively!) of their impact.

1.) Less than a half degree on the tonearm azimuth, and easily dialed in with a small spirit level across the headshell assuming the platter is leveled first; and assuming the stylus is true to begin with.
2.) Again, less than half a degree -- even on the worst warped records. More than a half degree and tracking begins to deteriorate, possibly the tonearm will fly free of the record! An eighth inch deflection (or warp) at the outside edge of a record is about one degree and nearly untrackable (depending how steep the bump.)
3.) Again, a negligable deviation.

It's not easy to get the Stylus Rake Angle perfect either; there is no standard, and records (especially these days) come in different thicknesses. And not everyone has a TriPlanar, Graham, or some other arm with on-the-fly micrometer adjustment. HOWEVER, it's very important to at least get in the ballpark. And to do that, you have to know where your arm is set when the stylus on YOUR cartridge is perfectly vertical. Thus my method for determining that condition.

Axel,
I use a miniature calibrated bubble level -- mainly because it sits on top of the headshell more securely. But I could use a small spirit level, like the one van den Hul supplies with his cartridges. Either way, I could do so with a much higher degree of accuracy than you imagine possible ;-) As long as the instrument has been calibrated to a reference, it's all in the eye of the "technician".

BTW, two other ways to check and set azimuth accurately are:
1.) The 'null' method: playing an out-of-phase white noise groove with the preamp set to "mono".
2.) The mirror method: viewing the stylus with a small scope (from in front of the cartridge) as it rests on a first surface mirror and adjusting for a perfect hourglass shape; similar to the SRA calibration technique.
3.) Another method for dialing in the azimuth (similar to the 'null' method, is to use an ocilloscope.

Frankly, I like these three methods better than the leveling technique just because they take into account that the diamond itself may not be perfectly "true" in relationship to the cartridge body.

If one is using any kind of cartridge with a line-contact or microridge stylus, this degree of setup accuracy is really essential rather than 'anal'; and the results prove it. On the other hand, there are many fine cartridges available with elliptical and even spherical styli, which are more tolerant of less than perfect setup.

Neil
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