VdH VTA setting preferences

No negative! What cartridge maker in their right mind would have you tilt their cartridge backwards to get the correct SRA? (Read the vdH website as well.)

I've discovered it's only when folks have their cartridges loaded way too high that (they think) they get better sound that way.

If you have the .55 mV copper coil Condor, your optimum loading will be 2400 ohms +/_ 50%. (In other words, start at 1200 ohms and work your way up until the bass is tight and full and the highs are smooth but not shrill.) Your VTA (actually SRA) for a van den Hul will just about right (1-2 degrees) by raising the tonearm post about 4-6mm above the point where the cartridge/tonearm is parallel to the record.

Thanks for your help. I have the 0.35 copper coil Condor. Using 1Kohm as recommended in all the reviews & my dealer. VdH recommends 200 ohms. I can play w. resistors. I started w. 200. It was smooth but closed in. Now it is much more alive & everything is getting there w. each record played.

I had an Urushi before. You had to have my tonearm almost touching the record (100 ohm setting) to get it to sing, but boy did it sing.

Hi Dgad. The .35mV Condor has an internal coil resistance of 36 ohms. Using the standard 25x multiplier, that puts the (theoretically) optimum load at 900 ohms. And the overall range in which you should find your best setting (+/_ 50%) 450 ohms to 1350 ohms.

So you're probably close to perfect at 1Kohm. If it were me, I'd start raising it in 100 ohm increments until the bass started thinning out and the mid/highs started getting bright, glarey, grainy and/or shrill, and then back off.

The best way to set the SRA (stylus rake angle) for any cartridge is as follows:

Tape the platter so it can't spin.

Get a small first surface mirror (from an old SLR camera. They have lots of 'em at camera repair shops now.) and put it on the platter (without a record) near the outside where the stylus sets down.

Take off anti-skate, but make sure VTF is correct.

Lower the stylus to the mirror (get some good light too) and viewing the stylus from the side with a 50x pocket microscope, raise/lower the tonearm until the stylus is perfectly vertical, ie it lines up with its own reflection in the mirror (for a vdH stylus, this will be a perfect hourglass shape.)

To add 1.5 degrees of SRA using a standard 9" (23cm) tonearm, raise the tonearm post approx. 6mm. This is an excellent starting point, and by raising or lowering the arm 1mm at a time from this point, and listening carefully, you may improve over this setting or you may not :~)