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Corrections and Additions

207.3.84.15

Posted by Jon Risch on April 16, 1999 at 19:57:27

In Reply to: Setting up your FIRST Cartridge..... posted by Thorsten on April 15, 1999 at 12:20:12:

In this section:

[ Simply carefully lower the Arm so the Cartridges needle ends up on the stylus force gauge where it's supposed to be. See what the tracking-weight is. Depending upon the Arm, move the counterweight until the correct weight according to the Manufacturers recommendation is established. Moving the Weight forward (toward the Arm Pivot) increases the tracking force, moving it back reduces it.... ]

you forget to mention two things:
One, DO NOT adjust the counterweight with the stylus on the gauge!!!!

Usually, the tonearm will have weight markings that will get you in the ballpark AFTER the weight has been zeroed. For those tonearms that use a weight setting spring, use the counter weight to zero, and per the owners manual instructions for the arm, use the spring to set the weight. Again, there should be some weight markings somewhere. Often with counterweight set arms, there is a dial (slip ring around the back or front edge of the counter weight that is marked in grams) that can be zeroed once the arm is zeroed, and once the slip ring is zeroed, you then turn the counter weight in toward the pivot by the amount of grams of desired tracking weight. Set to the nominal amount recommended using this dial, then check with the force gauge, and remove the stylus from the gauge, tweak the tracking weight and re-measure with the gauge until satisfied. Be very aware that each time you place the cartridge on the gauge, you court disaster, so do not get too anal, within 0.1 grams is quite close enough.

Also be warned that there were an awful lot of STEEL based SHure cartridge gauges out there, and most MC carts will have a powerfull enough magnetic field to pull them selves down and snap the cantilever, or at least bury the suspension, which might damage it. Be sure to check BEFORE placing the cartridge on the gauge!

BTW, the heavier range of the tracking weight will usually give the best results. For instance, on many MC carts, the tracking weight range can be around 1.5 to 2.3 grams. Try starting with 2.0 to 2.1 grams (or the high end of this example range), as this will help prevent mistracking, which will cause much more damage than the slight extra weight. NEVER use the recommended minimum, this is a bogus number only there for show, and not intended to actually be used at that tracking weight.

Regarding the protractor set-up:

[ All protractors feature parallel lines to which you are supposed to superimpose your Cartridges Sides. I wish those having bought Cartridges with non-parallel sides good luck. You will need it. The best thing to do
with such Cartridges is to use the Cantilever as guide, but quite frankly it a total pain in the neck (or lower) to do. ]

There is more to it than this. A proper set up includes mounting the cartridge with a certain amount of "stylus overhang", the amount that the cartrige stylus is hanging past the turntable spindle center (if it could pivot that far). This is usually set by measuring from the back end of the headshell up to the styulus tip, for a particular tonearm, and assumes that the arm was mounted properly on the turntable base in the first place.

Integrated TT/arm combos should be OK in terms of the proper tonearm location, and so should dealer installed arms, but it never hurts to check yourself, and make sure that the tonearm has been properly located on the base.

After the overhang has been properly set, THEN you align the cartridge to be parallel ONCE the stylus has been placed on the crosshairs of the protractor. What with the fact that the cartiridge could have slid forward or backward a little, it pays to double check ALL the alignments again, and re-check the tracking force after you are satisfied that the cartridge is indeed in the correct alignment once you have tightened the screws down. Remember that the angles that you can see and align to are much grosser than the microscopic world of the stylus and groove wall, so take as much care as you can to set-up the angles and overhang, etc. These are much more critical than the correct weight to better than a tenth of a gram!

Regarding "VTA" set up:
One should not be that concerned with attempting to set the proper VTA for a given cartridge and tonearm, and making the tonearm parallel to the records surface would not necessarily do that anyway. What IS important is setting the SRA, or stylus rake angle, of the cartridge. The SRA is the angle that the stylus contact line that makes contact with the record groove has, with respect to absolute vertical. An SRA of 0 degrees is a stylus that is straight up and down with respect to the records surface. For all stylii except the old Shibata, and a few very rare and exotic modern stylii, the angle of the diamond chip in the cantilever is also the angle of the contact line.

You may ask, why should the SRA take precedance over the VTA? Because perfectly replicating the angle of the cutter heads cutting stylus ARM angle (that is, the swing arc of the cutter head stylus and the arm the cutting stylus is swinging on) is usualy not possible, and minor deviations will not cause that much distortion, while making the contact line of the stylus match the actual angle of the groove walls is not only possible, but much more desirable, as when this relationship is off, significant amounts of HF distortion and hash are generated.

How would I know all this? Well, it could have something to do with the basic research I did on the subject, and the papers I wrote on SRA vs. VTA. See:
November 1980 Popular Electronics article titled: "Phonograph
Playback: It's better than you think." by myself and Dr. Maier, p. 48.
AND
High Fidelity in the March, 1981 issue on page 31.
AND
Audio magazine, March 1981, page 21, "More Than One VTA",
again by Dr. Maier and myself.

See this article at Dejanews for some more details:
http://x7.dejanews.com/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=371045671&CONTEXT=924315767.662372378&hitnum=0

Long story short: you need a SRA of 1 degree forward, or away from the tonearm base. A bright light backlighting the stylus will reveal the tilt of the diamond chip. It helps to draw a diagram with a set of crosshairs and a line drawn at 1 degree from vertical so tha tyou can better eyeball the SRA of the stylus. Once again, DO NOT adjust the tonearm height to get the desired SRA without re-engaging the stylus gaurd, and or the tonearm lift lever. ALWAYS BE VERY SAFE AND CAREFUL AROUND YOUR STYLUS, AND YOU WILL NEVER LOSE A CANTILEVER DURING SET-UP!

Also remember that almost all of these set up adjustments are interactive, if you change the tracking weight, you change the SRA a little, and also the stylus overhang a tad. It is somewhat of an iterative process, and I find myself, as experienced with turntable set-up as I am, needing to go back through the whole alignment process at least twice to fine tweak the adjustments to come out as most nearly correct after all the other adjustments have been done.

The end result is a much cleaner sound from your turntable and cartridge, and an increased freedom from excess ticks and pops, and the lowest average distortion across the record that can be achieved by a fixed pivot tonearm.

Jon Risch

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