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VTA and HTA overhang

I was adjusting VTA on my tonearm tonight and out of curiosity decided to check how it effected the overhang according to my MINT LP protractor. To my surprise, very small changes to VTA on my 12" arm are quite noticeable when trying to align my stylus to the arc on my alignment protractor.

My question is to all of you who change VTA for each LP. How do you compensate or adjust for the resulting change in Horizontal Tracking Angle (HTA) or overhang each time you change your VTA setting?

Besides the hassle of adjusting VTA for different LPs, this is another reason I don't fuss with VTA once I have found a good setting for the majority of my LPs. I wonder if those who attribute sonic differences to VTA changes are not also hearing slight changes to alignment which surely effects the sonics.
peterayer
sarcher30
596 posts
 
Fleib, I'm not sure where I wrote that SRA does not matter. I don't feel that HTA is necessarily more important than SRA. It's all important and all we can do is optimize all the dimensions the best we can. I also do not think that small adjustment of VTA without resetting HTA is wrong. I was just pointing out its effect on HTA.

As for Stevenson or Baerwald you gotta go with what sounds best to you.

I just looked at the vinyl engine calculator again and it shows Baerwald as having the least max distortion and Lofgren B as having the most max distortion. Lofgren B has the least average distortion though. Baerwald has less max and average distortion than Stevenson so I can understand why it is popular.
sarcher30
596 posts
 
Theo, The Herbies Way Exellent II Mat is what I think Tom is referring to. I have one and have used it on a LP12. They are fairly light and work well on the Linn. They do make them in many different heights.

On my current TT I prefer a harder mat though.
stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,368 posts
 
I view perfect alignment if the stylus touches the inscribed arc at any point on the Mint protractor
tketcham
291 posts
 
Sarcher30, the mat I'm referring to is not the "Way Excellent" mat; it's the "Donut" mat found at the bottom of the Herbie's Turntable Mat web page. It's basically the elastomer wafer of the "Way Excellent" mat without the silicone foam base. The "Donut" is not intended to absorb vibrations so it's sonically inert for the most part. That's why I found it to be a good method to adjust for LP thickness and SRA on the Gyro SE.

Theo, I'm not familiar with the Linn 12 platter so cannot say if it will work the same as for the Gyro SE. But I will add that I also use a "Donut" on a Music Hall mmf-7 turntable, which has an acrylic platter, and the results are similar. The main difference is that I use a Way Excellent mat on the mmf-7 and it compresses slightly so I use the 0.81mm "Donut" to account for the compression.

Regards,
Tom
ketchup
688 posts
 
The only way the offset would not move when adjusting VTA up or down is if the tonearm post was curved.

The Eminent Technology ET 2 tonearm has a curved post for this exact reason. The part is called the arc block or VTA block. The arc block is stationary and the bearing housing rides the arc of the arc block as VTA is adjusted to keep overhang dead on.
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