Why Cartridge set up is so important!

Think cartridge suspension rubber is usually optimised for 21 oC so if your playing a hot or cold room your buggered!:)

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Originally Posted by hifi_dave

Having set up and adjusted tens of thousands of cartridges on various turntables with numerous arms, I must say that I have never lost sleep about these miniscule, inaudible adjustments which the golden ear brigade claim to hear. To date I have never had any customer complain to me that my set up is wrong, inaccurate or could even be improved.

Don't get me wrong, I always set up cartridges and arms to the best of my ability but all this faffing about adjusting by half a thou or 1/100 of a gram really does not make massive differences.

If you really want to drive yourself nuts you should take into account that records are cut with different parameters and setting up a cartridge and arm for one record doesn't necessarily make it correct for another record.

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Hi Dave, I take your point. I thought that record height was an important factor to and would upset the stylus SRA setup greatly, however I have recently read that in a "on a 230mm arm one needs around 4mm change of arm height at the pivot to change the angle by 1 degree" which is quite a bit. So presumably if you set up the SRA to 92 degrees on a medium thickness record(140gm) then playing a ticker or thiner record will not affect the SRA that much? Obviously if you record collection is predominantly 180gm records you would set up for that possibly.

So following up on my post yesterday, this morning I decided to see if I could improve on SQ with the Micro Benz LP-S set up. What primarily lead me to do this was that yesterday having set up the Goldring 2500 and being pleased with the result I played a Quincy Jones record and it sounded great, however previously with the LP-S I had experience very sharp hi frequency transients which made me think there was a problem with the record. Now I was not so sure.

First I examined the LP-S stylus using a USB digital microscope camera, even though I regularly clean it with a dry carbon fibre stylus brush it did look rather dirty. So following several guides I very carefully cleaned the stylus using a very small and soft brush using distilled water, I kept the brush away from the workings and kept the cantilever pointing downwards. I ended up with a very clean and new looking stylus viewing it with the USB microscope.

Next I very carefully checked the position of the cartridge in the head shell using a small steel ruler, I ensured it was absolutely centred ( it was slightly off), and I checked the stylus overhang using a gauge I have. So my examination showed it was not quite perfectly mounted in on the head shell.

I proceeded to mount the head shell in the arm, initially setting a neutral VTF(head shell parallel with record surface), then I checked and adjusted azimuth for accuracy, then VTF, I then took some time adjusting VTA/SRA so that I achieved a slightly raised arm at the pivot, I could visually see this using a gauge I have.

I put on my two test listening tracks as before. I was immediately aware of more clarity, depth to the sound stage, and control and detail in bass note, this was very evident with the drums on the Ravi Shankar. With Eva Cassidy the most noticeable aspect was that there is virtually no sibilance now, and her voice sounds very pure and natural, that in the room experience , for want of a better description.

To sum up I think I have proven to myself that ensuring that a cartridge is as well set up as possible is critical, and will give you great a better SQ result. I am not saying I have got it perfect but I have certainly got a worthwhile improvement not once but twice by being methodical, taking my time and checking set up criteria several times. From what I have read some types of stylus tips are more forgiving than others due to the way they sit in the groove. But my understanding is that a lot of todays modern stylus are not so forgiving, so getting it right becomes more important to get the most from one.

I would advise anyone not quite happy with their record replay to take a look at their cartridge set up, there is lots of information available and some simple inexpensive tools help with the task greatly.

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Originally Posted by AJSki2fly

So following up on my post yesterday, this morning I decided to see if I could improve on SQ with the Micro Benz LP-S set up. What primarily lead me to do this was that yesterday having set up the Goldring 2500 and being pleased with the result I played a Quincy Jones record and it sounded great, however previously with the LP-S I had experience very sharp hi frequency transients which made me think there was a problem with the record. Now I was not so sure.

First I examined the LP-S stylus using a USB digital microscope camera, even though I regularly clean it with a dry carbon fibre stylus brush it did look rather dirty. So following several guides I very carefully cleaned the stylus using a very small and soft brush using distilled water, I kept the brush away from the workings and kept the cantilever pointing downwards. I ended up with a very clean and new looking stylus viewing it with the USB microscope.

Next I very carefully checked the position of the cartridge in the head shell using a small steel ruler, I ensured it was absolutely centred ( it was slightly off), and I checked the stylus overhang using a gauge I have. So my examination showed it was not quite perfectly mounted in on the head shell.

I proceeded to mount the head shell in the arm, initially setting a neutral VTF(head shell parallel with record surface), then I checked and adjusted azimuth for accuracy, then VTF, I then took some time adjusting VTA/SRA so that I achieved a slightly raised arm at the pivot, I could visually see this using a gauge I have.

I put on my two test listening tracks as before. I was immediately aware of more clarity, depth to the sound stage, and control and detail in bass note, this was very evident with the drums on the Ravi Shankar. With Eva Cassidy the most noticeable aspect was that there is virtually no sibilance now, and her voice sounds very pure and natural, that in the room experience , for want of a better description.

To sum up I think I have proven to myself that ensuring that a cartridge is as well set up as possible is critical, and will give you great a better SQ result. I am not saying I have got it perfect but I have certainly got a worthwhile improvement not once but twice by being methodical, taking my time and checking set up criteria several times. From what I have read some types of stylus tips are more forgiving than others due to the way they sit in the groove. But my understanding is that a lot of todays modern stylus are not so forgiving, so getting it right becomes more important to get the most from one.

I would advise anyone not quite happy with their record replay to take a look at their cartridge set up, there is lots of information available and some simple inexpensive tools help with the task greatly.

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Good work Adrian and definitely paid off then. Encouraging.

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Originally Posted by Jimbo

Good work Adrian and definitely paid off then. Encouraging.

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Yes, well worthwhile IMHO, good luck and take your time, I am sure you will get improvements if it is not quite right to start with. :)

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Originally Posted by AJSki2fly

Hi Dave, I take your point. I thought that record height was an important factor to and would upset the stylus SRA setup greatly, however I have recently read that in a "on a 230mm arm one needs around 4mm change of arm height at the pivot to change the angle by 1 degree" which is quite a bit. So presumably if you set up the SRA to 92 degrees on a medium thickness record(140gm) then playing a ticker or thiner record will not affect the SRA that much? Obviously if you record collection is predominantly 180gm records you would set up for that possibly.

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Some years ago, Roy Gandy of Rega, wrote a technical paper about adjusting arm height and it's effects. It's all rather technical but it turns out that to do the job properly, the arm bearings would need to be something like 9 inches below the record surface, which is of course, impossible. His findings are that when we faff about with height, we are polishing a turd so no need to lose any sleep over it. It's on the www somewhere.

do you practice this and not bother when setting up peoples tonearms?

Bit aggressive but of course I don't because, as I said, it's not possible.

Anyway, don't shoot the messenger, I am merely passing on information from the designer of the most successful tonearm of all time. Perhaps you could quiz Roy, I'm sure he will be fascinated by your opinions.

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Originally Posted by hifi_dave

Bit aggressive but of course I don't because, as I said, it's not possible.

Anyway, don't shoot the messenger, I am merely passing on information from the designer of the most successful tonearm of all time. Perhaps you could quiz Roy, I'm sure he will be fascinated by your opinions.

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as i said elsewhere dave, there is no point in trying to instil perfection on an imperfect 'analog' unit. you set it up competently then listen and adj if needed... thats all.

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Originally Posted by hifi_dave

Bit aggressive but of course I don't because, as I said, it's not possible.

Anyway, don't shoot the messenger, I am merely passing on information from the designer of the most successful tonearm of all time. Perhaps you could quiz Roy, I'm sure he will be fascinated by your opinions.

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what i mean is when you set up customers cartridges do you tell them you dont bother with sra/vta?