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In Reply to: RE: Help with SS Zephyr MIMC and VPI 3D Arm Please! posted by FSonicSmith on October 16, 2016 at 10:58:35
> Thanks for not making fun of me-my fingerlift is facing in and not out.
You know, I didn't even notice that when I looked at the picture. I had to go back and take another look. ;-)
My opinion is that VPI might have mounted the tonearm incorrectly. They seem to have a history of doing that sort of thing. Can you measure the pivot-to-spindle mounting distance? It should be 258-mm. I've got a feeling that yours is a bit shorter than that.
Does your Mint protractor have the dimensions printed on it. What pivot-to-spindle mounting distance is it designed for?
As Louie3 mentioned, if your cartridge is in perfect alignment, it really doesn't matter whether it is all the way back in the headshell slots. On the other hand, since it is all the way back, it might not be back far enough to be in perfect alignment. See if you can measure the pivot-to-spindle mounting distance. It might be easier if you remove the tonearm so you can measure from the center of the spindle to the unipivot. Here is a post I wrote explaining how I make that measurement.
Best regards,
John Elison
Follow Ups:
Cartridge is still towards the back.
-Wendell
Yeah, towards the back! Not all the way back!
Steve is using an ART7, which has a stylus-to-mounting hole distance of 11-mm and I don't think his is all the way back. Maybe he will chime in.
Best regards,
John Elison
John and Rrob, I appreciate your thoughtful responses. I will try to measure spindle to pivot as accurately as I can, and will double check that my arm is correctly on the tungsten finger-stabber :-) but...with my Mint Protractor, once I got proper overhang with the stock VPI gauge, I then had perfect overhang with the Mint at both null points. As you likely know, the Mint is custom made on a made-to-order basis for one's particular table. IIRC, the man behind Mint is a guy by the name of Yip who knows his stuff. My point being that the fact that two "gauges" were in unison tells me that StP distance is likely not the problem. I think that when someone at VPI-or their third party vendor connected with 3D printing-drew up the design perameters for the 3D arm, the headshell became intentionally or unintentionally elongated. Correct me if I am mistaken, but the length of the so-called headshell has zero to do with effective length of the arm.
I noticed after the fact that the Zephyr and the Zephyr MIMC (I have one of each) do not have the same length cartridge body-the MIMC is a tad deeper/longer. If I am mistaken here, perhaps Peter of SS will see this and correct me. Another interesting tidbit; with the MIMC shoved as far back as it would go in both slots, my MIMC had perfect stylus alignment per the Mint Protractor with zero futher adjustment. I am used to spending an hour or more adjusting, sighting, re-adjusting, re-sighting and on and on with the Mint to achieve perfect cartridge twist so that the stylus is properly aligned. I certainly was not expecting this default occurrence. I don't know whether to chalk it up to serendipity or incredibly good precision/QC at SS.
If your stylus follows the arc on the Mint protractor and your cantilever aligns to both null-points, you are good to go. It might look a bit strange being all the way back in the headshell, but your alignment should be good.
I suspect the problem is as you say, the headshell is elongated or else the tonearm is slightly longer than intended. However, the effective length from pivot-to-stylus should be correct so long as the stylus follows the arc of the Mint protractor.
Good luck,
John Elison
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