VTF and VTA- Constant or not?

What's your best, quickest method to prove that VTF and VTA/SRA have been set up correctly or close to ideal?

"Prove"? Hmmm, I doubt the concept of proof is practical in this context. One could prove these things with lab equipment and a frequency analyzer, but since the optimum settings vary with each record you'd spend your whole life proving and no time listening.

That said, my partner and I are pickier than many, even amongst A'goners. Here's what we do:
1. We know our rig and system's sound really well. We understand what each adjustment does (at the stylus/groovewall level) and precisely how it effects the sound.
2. We listen to music we enjoy, alot.
3. We adjust while listening to optimize the sonic performance of each parameter.
4. The only "proof" we require is that instruments and voices sound as real as possible. (We once fussed with electronic measurements to optimize azimuth, but found we could adjust by ear as accurately and faster.)

One or both of us generally knows after a few seconds of listening which adjustments are out of whack and what direction they need to go. That comes from experience, there's no shortcut for trained ears (though research and guidance is helpful of course).

What tools do you need to have in measurements?

For VTF
We tweak VTF every single day, sometimes even for different LP's, but for that our only tool is our ears. A scale is only useful when you set up a cartridge and occasionally if the suspension relaxes so that a different VTF base point needs to be identified. I haven't unpacked ours in months.

For VTA (SRA actually, VTA is a misnomer)
1. My eyeballs, to level the cartridge (just a rough starting point, which is all we need initially for the reasons Stanwal explained; since very LP is different, there's little point obsessing over the initial setting IMO)
2. My ears. (We adjust SRA for each record. No exceptions. Most others do less, to each his own.)
3. Post-it notes and a pencil. (To record arm height settings on each LP jacket so we can quickly dial in for replays.)
Thanks to good record-keeping this actually takes very little time, and no playing time is lost since we adjust SRA on the fly.

Is it possible to have them "set and forget"(i.e. constant)?

Is it possible? Of course. Is it optimal. No.

If you value set and forget and also value optimal performance, go to live concerts or play from digital sources. Reproduction from vinyl records is too complex and the components involved (including the media itself) contain too many variables for set and forget to be optimal. Your choice.

If not, how frequent will you have your routine checking with the carts you have come across?

In our case, with every LP as I said. This has been so with every cartridge we've used, but we don't "check" our setups by dragging out a scale, a magnifier or other tools. We play music and adjust as required. I don't need a scale or a magnifier to know when my cartridge's VTF or SRA is optimal. The sonics tell me.

Doug

P.S. In 2004 I understood very little of this. It took about 3 years to get reasonably competent.

It's unlikely any "topnotch" audio system could come close to live, acoustic instruments, so I agree that would be a poor yardstick. I haven't personally heard any digital that matches our vinyl, though to be fair our vinyl front end cost more than those digital rigs you mentioned. There's no way to do what you described on the cheap. :-(

To our ears the UNIverse is still the most invisible cartridge we've never heard, though also the most finicky. It will play like a Strad, but only if you know how to let it. Its sweet spots are 10X smaller than any other cartridge I've used and the falloff in performance is rapid if you miss anything. If you want fun, this is it. ;-)

We haven't heard all the contenders of course, but we've not heard more lifelike reproduction from any other cart. See the review by my signature, several years old but we wouldn't change much if anything, except to add to the list of carts that can't touch it. Too bad it's discontinued and the remaining stock dwindling. Transfiguration Orpheus LO and Dyna XV-1S are pretty good too, and more easily available.

The copper coil, low output version is definitely the UNIverse to have (true of any ZYX). Other versions give up speed and dynamics or impose a Koetsu-like smoothation on the music, and we don't want to hear that. If I hear a component altering waveforms then it's unacceptable no matter how "musical" somebody thinks it sounds.

Similarly, fellow A'goner Mothra once said our preamp (which he now also has) is the only preamp he's never heard. That was lofty praise from a professional recording engineer and musician who's owned 20+ other good preamps and dumped them all. He defined what we're after in every component: nothing. So did the preamp's designer, Nick Doshi, whose signature phrase is "Enjoy music, tolerate equipment". Not bad for an engineer!

We're also classical listeners. Our acid test recordings are mostly our 100's of original/authentic instrument LP's by the likes of Hogwood, Harnoncourt, Scimone, etc. Harnoncourt's 70 LP survey of the Bach cantatas is particularly unforgiving of system eccentricities. Those records go from a glorious and intimate humanity to fingernails-on-slate in a heartbeat if a system isn't just right. They've embarassed some very pricey components visiting our home. I played one in another guy's system just once. He said it was the worst recording he'd ever heard. Little does he know that his system, which cost 3X what ours does, is just screwed up. ;-)

Doug

What would happen to the data on your post-it notes if you changed arm, cartridge, or table?
This thought has always kept me from adopting a similar system.

Quite right, Tom. Each data point is rendered obsolete by such changes, and by some others too. Our belt and battery improvements also resulted in small arm height changes, which of course I've recorded. The post-it notes on the LP's with the lengthiest data trails have about a dozen height numbers (and counting!).

However, and importantly, "obsolete" does not imply "useless". Such changes in optimal arm height are:
1) accurately cumulative with each other, and
2) consistent across all LP's.
IOW, if a new cart needs the TriPlanar's height to be 2.57 turns higher, and a subsequent change needs the arm .10 lower, I can play an LP that was last played before those two changes by moving the arm 2.57 - .10 = 2.47 higher than the last data point on that LP. All I need is a master list of height changes and an identifier next to the last data point on the LP note, so I know the currency of its last data point. Once I dial it in precisely (by listening) I record an updated point on that LP.

Even if I bring out an LP I haven't played for several years (and multiple equipment changes ago) I just add up the height adjustments since the last data point on that LP. Voila! I've just dialed in arm height on an LP last played several "systems" ago. This typically gets us within .05 or .10 on the TP's height scale, in mere seconds. Fine-tuning the precise new setting (which we record to the nearest ~.01) can be done whilst enjoying the music.

Record keeping sounds boring, but it eases the optimization of our playing and listening experience so much that I wouldn't give it up. Paul is fantastically sensitive to this adjustment (among others) so "close counts" is not an option for us. We actually chose the TP over a Schroeder Ref in 2004 primarily because we foresaw the value of this and the Schroeder lacks a height scale. (The TP was also $2K cheaper, but I've probably spent that in post-it notes - LOL.)

I'm sure it sounds uber-OCD, but Dan_Ed, Swampwalker, Nick Doshi, Raul and others have watched me do it and heard the results. I think they'd attest to how simple and effective it is. Of course they still don't bother with it themselves, so take that FWIW! ;-)

***

Relative to what Dertonarm just (correctly) posted, all the above is contingent on playing your cartridge at absolutely optimal VTF (to the nearest .01g at least, we adjust much more finely than that - every day). Most cartridge suspensions soften with age and use, so VTF needs to be reduced accordingly. When our current UNIverse was new it needed ~1.70g. Today (2+ years later) it plays optimally (better in fact) at ~1.20g. That is not a typo.

If you don't do this, everything I wrote about arm height/SRA optimization is useless.

Plug 'n' play? Not quite!

Dan,

Since record company cutting head VTA's are known to have varied from a low of around 15 degrees to 20 or even 22 degrees, Dertonarm's suggested range seems reasonable.

I haven't gone that far myself, but I can confirm that there is great consistency within each record label, especially with records from the same plant.

Our first data point for every LP, recorded when it's cleaned, is the LP's weight in grams (a proxy for thickness). The LP's never been played by me so choosing an initial arm height might be a guess, except that I probably have a similar weight LP on the same label somewhere (I also have a list like Dertonarm's, though self generated and a bit half-assed). It's quick and easy to find a similar LP and calculate a starting arm height, adjusting as necessary if the new one is heavier or lighter.

This usually (90%) gets us VERY close to the optimal height for the new LP on the first spin. A little more record keeping, a lot more time saved.

Agree not all carts soften, it depends on the elastomers of course. Consult your favorite chemical scientist for details. ;-)

Doug

Henry,

Most people believe I'm very much on my own. Why disappoint them? ;-)

Do remember that our cartridge reached this stage in small steps. We did not wake up one morning and ask, "What would happen if we dropped VTF from 1.70 to 1.20?".

Of course there's no reason to believe 1.50g or any other randomly selected number will be optimal. That's neither science nor craft nor even art, its guessing.

IME with 10-12 UNIverses, each one's VTF is best adjusted using the protocol I've posted before: find its mistracking point on very dynamic passages, work very slightly upwards from there by listening.

Have fun!
Doug

BTW, if you can play a UNIverse (or any cartridge) with "negative VTA", we'd all like to see photos. ;-)