No, you use your ears and listen ! Buy or sell as many fancy gadgets as you want if you cannot hear the difference between settings, it does not matter anyway. Now we are done !
Analog Magik
- Thread starter Tirebiter
- Start date
It seems VTA/SRA have the most deviations of all geometric and mechanical tolerances and standards. For many years, there was a 5 degree difference in VMA between US and Europe.
On the good side, VTA doesn't have at all as big impact as zenith and azimuth for several reasons; the amplitudes for vertical modulation is never as high, the most important audio (voices, soloists) is normally centered (i.e. no vertical modulation) and normally bass below 100Hz is summed in a stereomix.
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Sorry, can you explain how you do for example a zenith adjustment with your ears?
In my experience, you may hear the error, but you see it on a scope long before you can pinpoint what the error is. Usually it's never just one error but at least 4-5 combined errors.
To know how to individually adjust 4-5 parameters on a cartridge just by hearing must very hard, not to say impossible.
We have been setting up cartridges and arms for about a century without scopes fancy gadgets and special tools. Use what comes with your arm to set overhang, then a middle setting of recommended VTF, set azimuth visually and listen for best channel separation, then start dialing in the VTA, with a little patience, you will get there if you cartridge i made decently. Zenith/azimuth error seems to have become a big problem only after older reviewers have started loosing their hearing and have started promoted tools and microscopes to set this by measuring
Thanks for reply.We have been setting up cartridges and arms for about a century without scopes fancy gadgets and special tools. Use what comes with your arm to set overhang, then a middle setting of recommended VTF, set azimuth visually and listen for best channel separation, then start dialing in the VTA, with a little patience, you will get there if you cartridge i made decently. Zenith/azimuth error seems to have become a big problem only after older reviewers have started loosing their hearing and have started promoted tools and microscopes to set this by measuring
I appreciate what you express, but there's a point in modern cartridge design, and now I mean what we've seen the last 10-15 years, that you don't really hear the potential until you hear it. And in my experience it's very difficult to find that unless you are very methodical.
It's quite logical when you think abvout it, we deal with micrometers of movements.
In my opinion, if you care to spend a lot of $$ on a cartridge, the templates and tools used in the days are just too coarse for the modern vinyl playback.
What is it about “modern cartridge design” which makes alignmrent more important than with prior designs?
The funny thing is, modern diamond cutting has improved, but vinyl manufacturing has just gotten worse, most of those 180 g audiophile records are bent and twisted and no cartridge adjusting is going to make them play right. A Ortofon Replica, MR or Van Den Hull cut need better adjustments than conical cuts, but most are made to specs and will work well with conventional templates.
You see a lot of it in your Ortofon MC Anna Diamond. It's not really possible to mount that with templates only to utilize its potential.
We can go into other details as well, but it's no use if we don't agree on the necessity to use other tools than templates and ears in order to utilize these potentials.
It's fundamental to me.
We need to keep telling the manufacturers that.
I talked to several european record plants, I think that's a good way.
I also believe it helps to promote good records, which is done here and elsewhere.
I own and use Analog Magik as one of my tools so we have that in common. I am just trying to understand why modern cartridges require this more than older ones. I don't see why all cartridges wouldn't benefit from other tools.
In my opinion they do. But not so much as for a modern design. Some examples;
- If the width of the stylus contact parallel to the groove is 50µm it isn't as meaningful to try to minimize phase error because you would have significant tracing distorsion anyway. Whereas if the width is 3µm and the contact surface is more of a line than a blotch in the groove section, it makes sense to try to get that line orthogonal to the groove.
- The materials and design of the suspension, damping, cantilever stiffness and stylus effective mass enables true decoding with some modern cartridges, where the high frequency system resonance and scanning loss is above the audio range.
- The physical wavelength of 10kHz at the outer nullpoint is 40µm. The dynamic behaviour of the stylus and motor in order to read such modulations correctly is quite demanding. Cartride designers have improved both the contact mechanics and the control of the motion for many years and still do, and MC Anna Diamond is one example on what can be achieved today.
- The characteristic "double hump" in the dynamic behaviour has been moved from 4-5kHz in the 50's to above 20kHz today, and typical scanning loss has gone from significant (3-6dB @10kHz) in a 60's cartridge to virtually nothing in a modern design.
- Modern tonearms enable adjustments of both angles and forces in very fine increments, which means it is possible to do these adjustments in a controlled manner.
I don't have AnalogMagik so it seems I better not post in this thread.
