The importance of VTA, SRA and Azimuth - pics

[Mike Lavigne]

tomorrow afternoon my new Talea tonearm will be installed on my Dobbins-Garrard 301. the relevance to this thread is that the Talea has 'on-the-fly' adjustable azimuth.

the Talea designer, Joel Durand, will be doing the installation himself.

i'm not familiar with any other tonearm with 'on the fly' azimuth adjustment.

info on the Talea

my Talea is serial number 11. Joel has brought a prototype Talea to my room twice before to listen in my system; once on his Galibier tt and the other time he installed it on my Garrard. neither of those had the 'on the fly' azumth adjustment. this is an exceptionally excellent performing tonearm.

Joel is a professor of Music Composition at the University of Washington as well as a composer and musician. this tonearm began as a hobbiest investigation and now, IMHO, is a state-of-the-art product.

 

[vinylphilemag]

There's some very interesting info about SRA/VTA in Michael Fremer's column in this month's Stereophile.

 

[MylesBAstor]

tomorrow afternoon my new Talea tonearm will be installed on my Dobbins-Garrard 301. the relevance to this thread is that the Talea has 'on-the-fly' adjustable azimuth.

the Talea designer, Joel Durand, will be doing the installation himself.

i'm not familiar with any other tonearm with 'on the fly' azimuth adjustment.

info on the Talea

my Talea is serial number 11. Joel has brought a prototype Talea to my room twice before to listen in my system; once on his Galibier tt and the other time he installed it on my Garrard. neither of those had the 'on the fly' azumth adjustment. this is an exceptionally excellent performing tonearm.

Joel is a professor of Music Composition at the University of Washington as well as a composer and musician. this tonearm began as a hobbiest investigation and now, IMHO, is a state-of-the-art product.

Mike:

You know what makes me insane about setting about cartridges? Those arms where you use the counterweight to set VTF and azimuth. It's near impossible to set one without screwing up the other (of course VPI has a fine adjustment screw in the arm). The first arm that I had that used that system was the Wilson Benesch and now the VPI. So I envy the ability to set azimuth w/o screwing up VTF!

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike:

You know what makes me insane about setting about cartridges? Those arms where you use the counterweight to set VTF and azimuth. It's near impossible to set one without screwing up the other (of course VPI has a fine adjustment screw in the arm). The first arm that I had that used that system was the Wilson Benesch and now the VPI. So I envy the ability to set azimuth w/o screwing up VTF!

a little insanity is good for the soul....

i had a Schroeder Ref SQ for 6 months; now there is an arm with interactive adjustments. you ratchet your way to sonic bliss, and then you have the adjustable dampning too. any single change seemed to change everything. to be fair, i don't think i ever mastered the Schroeder and got it to sound it's very best during my time with it.

i've not personally played with the Talea's adjustments yet, so i really do not have a feel for how independent the separate adjustments are.

 

[jcmusic]

Reading all this is very interesting but, why not just use a scope if you can???

Jay

 

[MylesBAstor]

Reading all this is very interesting but, why not just use a scope if you can???

Jay

I'd say basically with the computerized Feickert set up program, one doesn't need a scope. BTW, the Audio Technical can be connected and used in conjunction with a scope.

Me, no room any more for scope, even a smaller one.

 

[jcmusic]

Let me say it another way, would a scope do as good a job???

Jay

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I'd say basically with the computerized Feickert set up program, one doesn't need a scope. BTW, the Audio Technical can be connected and used in conjunction with a scope.

Me, no room any more for scope, even a smaller one.

the problem is that what a scope measures, channel electrical output, is not what matters most; it's channel phase. and either you get a software program to measure it like the Feickert or you do it by listening. the last 2 RMAF's i've sat thru the Fremer/Feickert seminar and the phase issue makes sense. it's phase that determines location of things in our brain and whether something is real or not. tiny differences in SPL are not that detectable by our hearing.

i have a good scope, plus i have the little box that does the summing where you adjust for minimal SPL. the Talea allows for adjustment of azimuth dynamically while listening....which seems to be the hot ticket. i watched Joel Durand take a mono Lp and listen and adjust the azimuth last Sunday and really dial it in.

it really works.

 

[Albertporter]

Mike, Have or others reading this tried the Fosgate Fozgometer?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike, Have or others reading this tried the Fosgate Fozgometer?

Albert,

i'm not sure who has tried what. the Fozgometer does sound like a useful product.

there is a thread on Audiogon here....

Fozgometer

which gets into the pros and cons of adjusting Azimuth by sight, by measuring crosstalk (the Fozgometer or other methods) or using an arm with dynamic 'on the fly' azimuth adjustment (the new Talea).

personally; i think 'by sight' is as close to ideal as measuring crosstalk. neither are spot on. by ear is the very best and that way is easiest with the Talea.

Mike

 

[mep]

I have ordered a Fozgo and am looking forward to receiving it. They are currently on backorder and it may be 4 weeks or so before I get it. I am looking forward to it and seeing if it makes any positive changes on my set up. I have a scope, but for me it is just not practical to bring it into my listening room and set it up. The Fozgo will be much easier to deal with.

Mark

 

[silviajulieta]

For all interested - I have been astounded by the improvement of properly setting SRA around the optimal 92 degrees, and perfect azimuth as shown below... The geometry of the arm-cartridge is anything but appealing now, but the results are well worth it.

1) Proper SRA has dramatically reduced intermodulation distortion, which can be easily verified with large scale choral music - grainy choruses now sound extremely smooth:

View attachment 223

If you were to look at the stylus with a 10x loupe, you'd see the end result, which unfortunately I cannot photograph.

2) Perfect Azimuth has expanded the soundstage and improved channel separation:

View attachment 224

After setting azimuth correctly, the results can be verified by playing a 1kHz mono tone:

View attachment 225

After these adjustments, I went ahead and realigned the cartridge with my Mint LP tractor again. The overall improvement is phenomenal. One of the more important decisions I made last year when I got back into analog was to get an arm that supports all these adjustments. I would now not be able to go back to any ordinary arm!

Dear AcK: You are spot-on, absolutely critical adjustements on cartridge/tonearm alignment that makes " the difference " if like you say you have the right tools to do it ( tonearm, protractor, test records and the like. ).

I can´t add nothing relevant on what you posted other that we have to be aware that a LP cartridge/tonearm alignment normally works and is in target with that LP and not with other recordings/Lps: 180gr-200grs-140grs on vynil, different SRA on the record cutting, etc, etc, well this is part of the trade offs in a non perfect mechanical devices. Other factors that all we know and to take in count is that changes in VTF affect VTA/SRA and VTA/SRA changes affect azymuth and vtf and overhang, this could tell us that not always we can be right on target about. Such is life in analog.

One point that could be interesting for some of you is about setting the cartridge/tonearm with different geometry calculations like the ones we already know: Löfgren, Baerwald, Stevenson, etc, etc.. We can find through Enjoy the Music or Vynil Engine " Calculators ", automátic ones, that show us the differences in tracking error and distortions through all the LP recorded surface and where we can choose which geometry equations ( Baerwald, Lö, St. ) like to each one of us, we can try all and it does not matters which pivot tonearm we own. The only date/number we need to do it is the tonearm effective length and the Calculator give us: overhang, offset angle, pivot to spindle distance and null points. Even we can go more in deep about and change the inner an outer groove numbers that give us different setting parameters with the same effective length in each one geometry choice and can choose between IEC or DIN standards.

My experiences and other peoiple experiences makes me to share these with you and tell you that it is " surprising " worth to try/test it. As I said: it does not matters which pivot tonearm you own.

regards and enjoy the music,
raul.

 

[jcmusic]

I used my buddy's Fozgo the other day to check my azimuth on my VPI, glad I did it was about 2-3db off. After getting the azimuth set perfectly I did some listening, WOW!!! what a difference 2-3db can make. I would have never thought that it would have made that much a difference, boy was I wrong. I think this little unit is worth it's weight in gold!!!

Jay

 

[rhopkins]

I've used the Adjust + software and it really makes it easy to set azimuth and test a few other things too while you are at it. I'm not a Windows person so getting it to "go" was a bit challenging but now that it is working it's pretty consistent and easy to use. I used measurements and mirrors to get it in the ball park and then a test tone on an LP and I really thought I had it. The Adjust + told me I was off by about 0.6 and after adjusting to make it perfect there was a very nice improvement. With my eyes I would have never gotten that and even with a test record I couldn't get closer.

I'm using an SME 30/2 with a Graham Phantom 2 tone arm and a Clearaudio Goldfinger cartridge. This little piece of software helps get every last juicy musical drop from those tasty vinyl disks. Highly recommended.

Someone my listening group borrowed a Fozgometer and got similar results. A real improvement for a minor investment and much simpler to use than the Adjust + although obviously the Fozgometer does only one thing.

 

[rockitman]

WOW!!! what a difference 2-3db can make. Jay

I have a Foz. Speaking with Musical Surrounding's (distributor), the little ticks on the guage do not represent dB (decibels) fyi. If it did, 2-3 db would be a huge imbalance. It's actually voltage levels, nothing more. The purpose is to get them as close as possible (the readings equal) for each channel left & right.

 

[Grainger49]

the problem is that what a scope measures, channel electrical output, is not what matters most; it's channel phase. and either you get a software program to measure it like the Feickert or you do it by listening. the last 2 RMAF's i've sat thru the Fremer/Feickert seminar and the phase issue makes sense. it's phase that determines location of things in our brain and whether something is real or not. tiny differences in SPL are not that detectable by our hearing.

i have a good scope, plus i have the little box that does the summing where you adjust for minimal SPL. the Talea allows for adjustment of azimuth dynamically while listening....which seems to be the hot ticket. i watched Joel Durand take a mono Lp and listen and adjust the azimuth last Sunday and really dial it in.

it really works.

At least a year ago I decided to set up anti-skating with a scope. I have read often that placing the stylus in the center of the groove indicates proper anti-skating. I went about this by playing a mono track on the Hi-Fi News test LP, I fed the right and left signals, after phono stage, into my scope channels, inverted one channel and added. I adjusted anti-skate for a null which would indicate equal voltage out of each channel.

Soon I realized that allowed too many variables. So next I inverted the wires on one channel of the cartridge, summed with a Y adapter at the end of the tone arm leads and played that single channel into the 'scope. I adjusted for nearest zero output, there are always some phase differences. That should hold the stylus in the center of the groove (it assumes matched generator outputs, so does say, the Fozgometer). At least it should work for that point on the LP, probably not all points.

Then I read the manual on the Fozgometer. It distinctly says that Azimuth is adjusted for matched output from both channels. The invert and sum does that much simpler than their goal of getting the meter to read the same voltage. You have to average the meter movements and remember the voltage level of the first channel and then see if the right channel is the same. BTW, couldn't you do that with any good volt meter? With the invert and sum method the goal is zero which is perfectly matched but subtracted.

This method is cheaper for me because I have the scope and don't have a Fozgometer. However the scope is extremely heavy and I don't like lugging it upstairs, but I'm particularly cheap.

Has anyone else tried this? Am I barking up the wrong tree?

 

[Grainger49]

I have either killed this thread or it was dead when I posted. There hadn't been a post for 2 months when I read it and posted.

 

[Taksil]

i'm not familiar with any other tonearm with 'on the fly' azimuth adjustment.

IIRC my previous TT a Well Tempered Classic with the Well Tempered arm had a wheel which allowed azimuth adjustment on the fly as it adjusted the paddle in the silicon bath which the arm was fixed to. I am sure that the Talea arm must be more technologically advanced though.

 

[DaveyF]

IIRC my previous TT a Well Tempered Classic with the Well Tempered arm had a wheel which allowed azimuth adjustment on the fly as it adjusted the paddle in the silicon bath which the arm was fixed to. I am sure that the Talea arm must be more technologically advanced though.

Taksil, my WTA black arm allows for on the fly azimuth adjustment, you can set it within an inch or two...

Plus, once set it likes to float around, but this time only by a few millimeters here or there

However, the darn arm does sound very good....no idea why

 

[20hertz]

USB Microscope

Usb microcope in action. http://forums.naimaudio.com/displayForumTopic/content/13674671668847115