Table/Cart Set Up - By Ear or Test Record?

You all talk about what a compromise the pivot style tonearm is to playing records. I don't get it. My turntable, tonearm and cartridge set up sounds great from beginning to end. All I could ask for is less crackle and pop from my aging collection. Do you not think that the cartridge designers know that the pivoting tonearm has only two tangency points? Look at the stylus designs. The have curved faces to allow for the changing angle through the arc of the pivot. I don't see a pivoting tonearm as a compromise. The tonearm and cartridge are designed as a system working to each other's strengths and weaknesses. Besides, if it were such a compromise, engineers would have come up with a better music medium like CDs or downloadable files. (Tongue in cheek comment).

I haven't posted in ages, but I couldn't resist this one, especially since I'm in the process of setting up a new cartridge.

This cartridge calls for a tracking force of 1.5 grams; not 1.00 gram, not 2.00 grams, but 1.5 grams.

These people have been manufacturing cartridges longer than I've been buying them, they should at least know what tracking force works best for their cartridge.

There are many things I do by ear, but TT's is not one of them; there is far too much minutiae. I do everything by the book, as close to the book as I can manage, and forget about it.

Somebody in the other thread said that the ET-2 has a curved VTA adjustment. I found that interesting. This works well when you are adjusting for SRA on the same height record. If you are adjusting VTA for different height records then you need a straight VTA post to keep alignment steady. They also said that the ET-2 arm can do that as well but not as easily. I wonder how much distortion there is if your linear tracking arm is off a little bit? I suppose the zenith would be a little off all the way through the record.

Doug, When I did move my arm base up vertically 2 mm at the pivot, I checked my overhang alignment on the MINT. I have a 12" arm, but I'm surprised by how much my HTA moved - well beyond my margin of error in set-up. I'm sure you and Doug don't adjust VTA by that much with your 9" arm. It was especially off the arc at the outer (lead in groove) edge. I start by lining up the inner part of the arc near the spindle. Then I check the outer part near the edge of the platter. If it looks spot on at the inside, it can be off at the outside by as much as 2-3 mm. This, IMO, is what is frustrating and takes time with the MINT.

My point is that I wish a slight change in overhane were just a matter of the stylus being off the arc uniformly by a small amount, but in fact, it is off by a varying degree along the length of the arc, and much more at the outside edge. How this actually affects the null points, I'm not sure.

I do, however, know that in a highly resolving system, slight changes to any of these parameters are clearly audible. Some more so than others. I agree with you that proper SRA is critical and then I would list VTF, then Zenith, then anti-skate, and finally HTA. I can't really adjust for azimuth with my arm, but I find my cartridge to not be that sensitive to that, or the stylus/cantilever is pretty accurately mounted.

I use the manufacturer recommended settings as a good starting point, and then make all final adjustments by ear.

Maybe this is rehashing old verbage, but it is becoming clear here that the experienced people use the tools for the initial set-up and then tweak or trim things in by ear. Listening is the final step of the process. Part of the reason why is simply the tolerances and accuracy of the tools we use. e.g. the stylus force gage. Unless your stylus force gage is calibrated and traceable back to the National Bureau of Standards, don't count on accuracy better than +/-10-15%. So if you are setting your VTF to 1.5 grams, the actual could range from 1.35-1.65 grams. The same with the protractors if you think about the accuracy of the printing on them as well as the accuracy of adjusting overhang and VTA by eye.