VPI non-Anti Skate Q

Thanks iseland, the link is very helpful!

Thanks ghdprentice.   May i ask what you mean by twist?

My tonearm wire is attached to a pin that goes to the RCA output box.   Also, VPI recommend adding 0.1g to the maximum total weight of the cartridge.   Is that OK?

Thanks

Not an issue I worry about.  I just follow the VPI set up guide when I change cartridges.  Only had to twist the wire 16th of an inch for one cartridge .  No big deal.

@billstevenson 

REW has the same inherent capability as the expensive Analog Magic. And it is free!

REW not only evaluates the sound in a room, but can also be configured to test hardware.

For example, to test for distortion I play a track from a test LP such as Ortofon's "Accuracy in Sound" LP or CBS Labs STR 100. Both are available at Discogs. Certain tracks on these LPs have several 1KHz test tone tracks for both channels. That is : one track for the Left channel and one for the Right.. By measuring the peak signal and distortion products (REW calculates peak signal and THD for you) for both channels, one can easily use simple math to determine channel balance and channel distortion. 

Azimuth. can be set by using two tracks, one for the Left and one for the Right. Channel. By observing both peak signal and the off-channel peak, for both channels for both the Left and Right tracks, one can easily determine separation.

Zenith is trickier. I usually measure distortion as I tweak (that is :adjust Zenith, observe distortion with REW, compare, adjust again until distortion is minimized) using the same 1KHz track.as for the Azimuth setting. In some cases, this becomes a trade off in Azimuth and Zenith adjustments as they can interact depending on stylus shape and orientation on the cantilever. This adjustment can be made real-time if one dares.

With these two adjustments, I can regularly achieve 30dB separation, +/-1dB channel match, and less than 0.25% distortion. Since I don't know how much distortion is already present on the LP itself, I can't say if the residual distortion is from the cartridge set-up or from the LP, but it is an upper bound on the cartridge distortion. This level of distortion is perfectly acceptable for cartridges and LPs and is in fact lower than that predicted using Vinyl Engine's "tonearm Alignment Pro" tool.

I usually set Anti-skate using the Soundsmith method.

My methods work well, but do require the user to become familiar with how to use REW and how to read the Spectral analysis (or RTA) functions. There's also a bit of addition and subtraction needed. One must provide an ADC (doesn't come with REW) and test LPs which cost about $30 each on Discogs. I use the Hf News test LP also, although far less than the others mentioned previously since the Anti-skate tracks are cut to an unrealistically high level and it doesn't have the single channel 1KHz test. Distortion is higher on this LP also.

@kevemaher Thanks for sharing your information.  Your results exceed any that I have obtained ever.  On what cartridge and turntable are you measuring these values?  You are a wizard.