Turntable advice / opinion on setup / sound.

@faustuss 

I said 

"3. Keep Your Rega until after other changes. Many people like the Regas, and the P8 also has lots of supporters. My problem with Rega’s is that they are fixed cartridges, not removable headshells; made for their ’lower than normal’ cartridges only 14mm high/ and the arm height is not adjustable! So, if you choose another cartridge, you might/will need a shim kit to raise the arm so VTA/SRA can be set correctly."

I stand, not kneel by that.

Ortofon makes special 14mm high cartridges to fit Rega arms, removing the need for shims.

Please give me a list of 14mm high cartridges.

@audphile1 

faustuss has me re-reading my posts, got as far as when I was yapping about tubes, 

"Perhaps needed 2, max 3 tubes."

I forgot to say, needed 2 or 3 PAIN killers after standing there so long, thus I will thoroughly agree, tubes CAN BE A PAIN.

'Quit your Whining' was what Nancy might have said when I got home from that annual ordeal.

@necrosuit 

I just read the 1st review that popped up on your choice of Phono Stage

https://twitteringmachines.com/review-manley-labs-chinook-special-edition-mkii-phono-preamplifier/

I like your choice, and would like to meet the reviewer.

If I had it, that would be the reason to finally learn about capacitance which I have chosen to ignore.

For me, I wish changing from MM to MC was a front mounted switch, the design is more suited to a single cartridge setup than for me and others who change cartridges frequently. Of course I would prefer two inputs, also front selectable, but I understand most do not need that either, and every switch is a less than pure design choice.

I just re-read and see that all received/installed/played and it all sounds terrific,

I repeat, I'd like to hear it.

Elliot, You wrote, "With a pivoting arm, there is NATURAL (someone else explain it, somewhere else) inward skate on a GROOVELESS surface,"  This sounds like 16th century (pre-Newtonian) science.  What is "natural"?  Anyway, sorry for the ribbing but I could not resist at least a little of it.  The cause of the skating force is friction between the stylus contact points and vinyl.  So of course you will have skating force with or without grooves. Friction is pulling the stylus away from the cartridge body as it drags along on vinyl. The tonearm attached to its pivot keeps the cartridge from flying off in the direction determined by a line drawn through the cantiever. So the tonearm is exerting a force to counteract friction.  Because the tonearm is stiff and cannot stretch or be foreshortened, the vector direction of the force that ends up acting on the stylus is finally toward the spindle (because the tonearm itself permits horizontal movement only along its arc as it travels across the LP surface). This is what we call the skating force for overhung pivoted tonearms with headshell offset. The headshell offset angle was originally introduced by Lofgren et al when he mathematically determined a tonearm shape and mount that minimizes tracking angle error (in around 1940, when there was no stereo, no microgroove LPs, no vinyl even, and many were still listening to cylinders).  But in that same solution, we have increased skating force because of the headshell offset angle.  If a line drawn using the cantilever as a guide does not pass eventually through the pivot point, you have skating.  Only a properly setup LT tonearm avoids skating altogether, because there the cantilever is always in a straight line with the pivot.  And yadayada.

@lewm 

Thanks, ’resist thee not’. Hang the fellow.

Some people mistakenly think ’it is the groove, not the friction’ that creates inward skate. I make the point, it can be SEEN without grooves.

Your explanation explains, as tracking force increases, friction increases, thus more anti-skate is required to offset the resultant increased inward pull.