Hi Hiendmuse, thanks for your thoughts. I had the arm parallel for 4 months. The resulting high tail from the microscopic adjustment actually sounds much better in this system. I have some old 6-eye Columbia records that always sounded out of register and I though that's how mid-50's Columbia records sounded. Violins in particular sounded high-pitched and textureless. Boy was I wrong! Not only do they sound in good pitch and nuanced. There's a whole orchestra of properly-pitched instruments too! Bass has gained weight and depth. They problem with trying to set SRA via VTA is that it assumes everything in between is just perfect. The arm has no variation and the cartridge is perfect. Microscopy bypasses those potential areas of variation. In the end the adjustment changed a good 15mm upwards. An SRA setting change that big can't be adjusted by ear. The farther you are from the "correct" spot, the less meaningful small changes sound. But from one degree off to the "correct" spot, the change is dramatic. So a 15mm difference is almost impossible to get to by ear if you change a few mm at a time you won't hear a difference.
VPI Classic 3 + 3D Tonearm SRA Adjustment issue
I have owned a VPI Classic 3 for about 4 months now. The VPI folks kindly installed a Dynavector 20X2-L that I provided. Initially I followed the manual's setup instructions: VTF, VTA by making the arm parallel to the record, and azimuth by the rod method. Michael Fremer suggests this method leads to 80% precision. The table sounded better than out of the box and I was happy.
But who buys an $8,500.00 turntable setup to be lastingly happy with 80% setup precision?
So after reading enough and obtaining the tools I set out this weekend determined to extract another 15-17% out of this system. The "tools" are a 2-digit-precision digital VTF gauge, a 400X digital microscope, and a Fozgometer Azimuth Meter.
Confirming the VTF was within range for this cart (1.8 - 2.2g) I set out to correct the SRA via microscope pictures as described by Michael Fremer and this is where trouble began as I could only adjust SRA to ~91-92 degrees by raising the arm as far as the VTA tower will go without loosing thread. At this height, a second guiding post the tonearm base has located near the arm rest no longer reaches completely through the top platform of the tonearm and it can't be locked via the locking screw next to it.
This seems odd, but I re-measured several times being very careful when taking the images to be parallel to the cantilever. Playing music like this confirms the tonal balance sounds better.
I was able to adjust the azimuth and the rest. But it seems wrong that the arm be that high to achieve proper SRA.
Could it be the cartridge cantilever is angled wrong? Could the VTF affect the SRA enough to cause this if it was on the higher end of the range? Or is there a way to raise the whole tonearm not using the VTA tower to achieve a more appropriate base height that then can be fine tuned with the VTA tower?
I appreciate all insights.
But who buys an $8,500.00 turntable setup to be lastingly happy with 80% setup precision?
So after reading enough and obtaining the tools I set out this weekend determined to extract another 15-17% out of this system. The "tools" are a 2-digit-precision digital VTF gauge, a 400X digital microscope, and a Fozgometer Azimuth Meter.
Confirming the VTF was within range for this cart (1.8 - 2.2g) I set out to correct the SRA via microscope pictures as described by Michael Fremer and this is where trouble began as I could only adjust SRA to ~91-92 degrees by raising the arm as far as the VTA tower will go without loosing thread. At this height, a second guiding post the tonearm base has located near the arm rest no longer reaches completely through the top platform of the tonearm and it can't be locked via the locking screw next to it.
This seems odd, but I re-measured several times being very careful when taking the images to be parallel to the cantilever. Playing music like this confirms the tonal balance sounds better.
I was able to adjust the azimuth and the rest. But it seems wrong that the arm be that high to achieve proper SRA.
Could it be the cartridge cantilever is angled wrong? Could the VTF affect the SRA enough to cause this if it was on the higher end of the range? Or is there a way to raise the whole tonearm not using the VTA tower to achieve a more appropriate base height that then can be fine tuned with the VTA tower?
I appreciate all insights.