VTA on the fly

lewm

... the change in VTF and overhang are so miniscule ... as to be inaudible even to a pair of Golden Ears such as your own ...

I've never, ever claimed to have "Golden Ears." I'm pretty sure most people can hear what I hear, if they take the time to listen.

I've actually never met an audiophile who claimed exceptional hearing.

Nope. I agree you didn’t claim to have golden ears. And yep, when you change vta all those other parameters change, but my point is that a tiny change in vta such as might be expected by a half turn on a micrometer type vta adjuster would likely make such minute changes to vtf, etc, as to be inconsequential. Which I guess is a subjective way to say I wouldn’t expect to hear a new “distortion” as a result, and I consider my two systems to be highly resolving.

lewm

... my point is that a tiny change in vta such as might be expected by a half turn on a micrometer type vta adjuster would likely make such minute changes to vtf, etc, as to be inconsequential ...

You might be right, but it's hard to be sure. It depends not only on the specific pickup arm and how much it is raised by that half-turn, but also on the arm length (the shorter the arm, the greater the change) and the stylus shape itself. (After all, there is no VTA at all when using a conical stylus.)

VTA on the fly is a handy feature, particularly if you will be adjusting VTA a lot.  But, it may also mean that the tonearm is not being held as rigidly as possible or that the VTA adjustment mechanism will become a source of unwanted resonant behavior.  Some arms, like the Basis Vector arm, have a micrometer for moving the arm up and down which can be adjusted on the fl, but, when the right spot is found, the set screw to the main pillar has to be tightened, and then the micrometer must be backed off so that this adjustment mechanism is no longer in the vibration grounding/damping game.

The ideal would also be something that allows for remote control of the mechanism raising and lowering the arm so that you can listen to the change from your chair.  I don't know of anyone who offers this, although Airtangent had at least a prototype for an arm with remotely controlled VTA adjustment.

I use the ability to change SRA (VTA) easily on the fly during my initial setup of a cartridge. I have found extremely small changes are noticeable once I am very close to my target... prior to being close to the proper target larger changes of SRA do not produce very noticeable changes in the produced sound. I do not change the SRA after spending the time to find the best setup in my system. My final adjustment increments are less than 0.1mm and can take a couple of days to finalize.