Vinyl Asylum: RE: How high should a stock Thorens TP-16 arm be? by thoriated

Thanks to all who replied. I have finally reached the correct SRA for the vast majority of what's in my collection.. (600+ records)

The reason I wanted to know the stock setup was very simple: If you use the headshell jig, it has to be referenced against something, no? That something is the stock elevation of the arm. If you raise it, then the headshell vertical adjustment will change from what the factory intended. In other words I needed an absolute, not a relative starting point.

That said, I found that for my VM540ML the correct setup is the arm all the way down, and no shims on the headshell. At this point the flat of the cantilever is almost parallel to the record and the stylus is a little forward of vertical. The arm itself is sloping down, which was expected and desired. And the sound.. yum.

I wonder if microline styli react different than elliptical -- my bass got STRONGER the more I approached the correct SRA from tail-low. The highs got cleaner, and the good records started delivering truly full, transparent, explosive sound - I'm talking big Living Stereo classical pieces with lots of brass and cymbals.

The biggest change was going from the 2.5mm spacer to 1.5. The rest was incremental refinements.

But Harry still ssssssssssibilates on that Carnegie Hall record... =o/