Why Cartridge set up is so important!

[Jimbo]

Upon fixing my new VM95ml to a headshell I realised I had the wires the wrong way around on the 95en, corrected that but can't say I hear a difference, does it matter? Looking forward to trying the 95ml later once I'm home. The 95en is most impressive, and only a 100 quid!!

Have you compared the 95en to the 95e?

[Mikeandvan]

Have you compared the 95en to the 95e?

The e is the standard one right? If so, no, I have just bought the EL, £50 more, so it better deliver! I got it all ready hooked up to a headshell, just not gotten around to placing it on the tonearm yet!

[helma]

Honestly I think cartridge alignment is one of the most overrated setup things. For one thing it's always a compromise on a pivoted arm, you're just moving the null points around, but with any of the 3 popular alignment geometries, even on a perfect setup the error in stylus angle will be about 2° - 2.5° at it's worst, depending on arm length and which record standard the alignment is optimized for. The worst error happens at the outermost grooves and another 'bad spot' is right in between the nullpoints, where the error will typically be 1 to 1.5°. In a perfect world that is - in practice it will likely be more because that precise alignment is very difficult to achieve. Yet people never seem to complain the first track sounds bad, or that there's a point around the middle of the record where sound gets worse, or that there are precisely two points on a record, where the sound is better than anywhere else. In short, unless you get it very very wrong (and maybe even then), changes in alignment geometry seem to be mostly inaudible to people. I don't know at which point it would become audible, I've played around with it a lot and in general I'd say it's way more important towards the center of the record and at the outside you can get away with a lot.

To achieve a geometry with two null points, you need overhang and offset angle, but that creates skating force and the greater the offset angle, the greater the force. Then a need for antiskating arises, which is just another compromise and never perfect, because the force your trying to counteract is not constant. There have been some tonearms which have prioritized other things than geometry, like at least some if not most SAEC arms have "weird" geometries that go against the face of accepted wisdom. They prioritized other design parameters at the cost of more tracking angle error for most part of the record.

I'm not saying you shouldn't do as good a job as you can with alignment, just that it's never "perfect" - you're always compromising on something, even if you accept the commonly accepted geometries as the best ones. With any alignment you have (at best) two points on the record with 0 tracking angle error. The diamond being mounted just the slightest bit angled might mean you have no null points, or just one, even with the cantilever perfectly aligned. Some people argue the skating force is actually more detrimental to playback than tracking angle error, for that reason DJ arms for scratching are straight with no offset and thus no skating force, meaning less chance of jumping with scratching etc. But there are arms like that for hifi use as well, I remember a recent "high end" one (the name escapes me, it also had a very short arm wand and was "mounted" just standing on a pod). Yamaha also made one for GT-2000. YSA-1 I think it was called.

IME azimuth is the most important adjustment, but even there things are not perfect because the diamond might not be perfectly aligned with the coils. So you're sacrificing either channel balance/separation or stylus angle against the grooves. IMO always better to set the azimuth according to stylus for best tracking. VTA/SRA seems to matter to me as well, I'm not sure how much, I never went through the trouble of setting it precisely with a microscope, but going by ear it does seem to matter, but can't say I ever heard the need for more precise than "close enough" even with advanced stylus shapes. Maybe it's just a lack of trying on my part.

YMMV and all that

EDIT: fixed typos, of course meant degrees instead of % when talking about tracking angle

[Barry]

Interesting post!

Given the overall distortion of Vinyl playback (approaching 15% in some cases), excessive attention to setup might seem to be largely impotent. Yet given the limitations of Vinyl playback it is worth spending time to setup the arm and cartridge as best as one can without becoming obsessive.

Regarding tonearm alignment, it is best to follow the directions provided by the manufacturer (that is use the alignment protractor provided). Most Japanese arms are designed to follow the Stevenson prescription, which was formulated through listening to both 7" 45rpm records as well as 12" 33rpm records. It places one of the null points at the innermost radius, and was followed by early SME arms, as well as some other British tonearms.

Baerwaldt and Löfgren prescriptions are derived purely from geometrical considerations. In the first case this equalises the tracking error across the record. In the second, it is harmonic distortion that is minimised. Recently yet a fourth prescription has been published, (called UNI-DIN, developed by Dietrich Brakenmeter), yet no criteria has been given for its formulation. It places the two null radii at 63.3 and 112.5mm.

Regarding VTA/SRA most assume the cartridge manufacturer has got it right, so the arm is set up to be exactly parallel to the record surface, when the cartridge is tracking at the recommended tracking force and used at the correct temperature. Some like to adjust the VTA depending on the weight (and therefore thickness) for each record but IMO that way madness lies.

Azimuth is easily set up using a mirror, or by playing a mono record with the preamp switched to 'mono'.

I agree anti-skating bias is a compromise at best. It needs to be greatest at the start of the record, where the groove velocity is greatest and to fall off linearly with radius, yet all 'falling weight' devices the amount varies as the cosine of the angle between arm and thread.

[AJSki2fly]

I personally would not under-estimate the importance of cartridge setup.

I have several cartridges, 3 x MC and 2 x MM and I have found that if care is taken setting up each then the best can be got from each, in some cases better results than I originally would have thought possible based on my previous listening experience with them.

I have an Ortofon OM5 series MM cartridge that I have upgraded to an Ortofon 40 stylus from a Dual DN105E stylus, when set up correctly it actually produces some rather fine sounds. I think this particular cartridge/stylus range is often overlooked by many but it is well worth trying out. Even the original DN105E is rather good but not quite as detailed.

As I originally posted I was also rather stunned by the results I obtained with the Goldring 2500M when I took my time in getting the it set up well.

Today I decided to try out the Ortofon Rondo Blue which I have had sitting in a draw for the past 6 years, it historically came with a Pro-Ject Xperience II turntable, I kept the cartridge when I sold the TT. I have since tried the Rondo on several previous occasions on different TTs/Arms, SME IV, JELCO TK850M , and Pro-Ject Signature 10 with varying success, and each time have never been quite happy with it, I always thought is sounded not quite right.

Today I carefully examined the cartridge using a digital microscope capable of up 1600x magnification, what I could was that the stylus looks perfect, it has only around 200 hours of use, however it is actually mounted slightly off of perpendicular with respect to Azimuth. That is to say if you mount it on a head shell which is absolutely parallel to the surface of a record when looking at it from the front then the stylus is actually canted in the groove to the right, by my estimation about 3-4 degrees. Not much but when I did so and checked the dB level out of each channel using a 300hz signal test track on the HiFi New test record, the right channel measured 82dB and the left 76dB, this is a significant difference due to the azimuth being wrong. When playing a record bass a drums sounded odd and detail in places seemed missing. I took time to adjust the head shell measuring after each change the right and left dB levels and when the were stable and both within 0.25dB of each other I was happy. I played my favourite test listening tracks as before, Ravi Shankar - 'Tala Rasa Ranga' on Portrait of Genius and Eva Cassidy - 'Fields of Gold' on Nightbird, and guess what it sounded great, lots of detail and depth, perfectly balanced, bass and drums now great, vocals crystal clear.

I can now happily listen to the Rondo Blue and enjoy it, and this is without playing around with VTA/SRA, I did quickly check the headshell from front to rear and it is actually parallel to the record surface. From what I have read and my understanding you have to raise or lower a standard 9" tone arm by 4mm to gain +-1 degree of VTA/SRA, and as it sounds very good as is I have not tried adjusting it.

So I still think that paying carefully attention to cartridge set up is important if you want to get the best from what you have. I would agree that VTA/SRA is not as critical with a standard 20 degree tracking angle cartridge as long as the head sell is parallel to the record surface it should be pretty good. However her is one caveat, a micro-ridge(micro-line) stylus as I understand and have experience can be quite sensitive to VTA/SRA setting, I found this out with my Benz-Micro LP-S, I now know where it sounds best using a simple tool to check the level of the head shell, to ensure it is slightly raised at the rear.

I do not use any fancy or expensive tools to set up my cartridges, just a simple ProJect but accurate digital tracking gauge, a cartridge alignment tool like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/UKCOCO-Acce...%2C127&sr=8-34, a simple paper Bearwald protractor as recommend by Project, a Hifi-news test record, a dB meter App on my iPhone to check azimuth and finally my ears.

It has taken me time to get to grips with setting up cartridges/tonearm but IMHO the time and effort is well worth it to get the best results.

My advise is:-

Firstly if the pivot arm position is not fixed and is adjustable then check it is in the recommended position for your turntable and arm, this is the measurement from the turntable spindle to the centre of the pivot point of the arm, once this is correct move to cartridge set up below.

1. Get the cartridge perfectly aligned in the head shell, first ensuring it is mounted down the centre line of the head shell and the body is equally parallel to each side of the head shell, and that the stylus is in the correct position for the required offset, if possible (I know the distance from the back of the head shell mount to the stylus tips which helps, but be careful if you do this), you will check the set up in 4 anyway. If the head shell is not a rectangular type the try and get it the cartridge centred.

2. Initially adjust the tracking weight to the recommended for the stylus by the manufacturer.

3. With an old record place the VTA and Azimuth checking tool on the record(as in the link) and visually check the head shell alignment for both with it, so that the head shell is parallel to the record surface from front to rear and horizontally looking at the front, adjust as necessary. If the arm height can be raised lowered then this will adjust the VTA, and if the head shell can be turned you will be able to adjust the Azimuth. In some cases one or both are fixed, and can only be overcome with shims between the head shell and cartridge, not something I have ever tried, or under the arm mount if it is removable from the turntable plinth. Some arms have a collar around a pillar allowing the arm to be raised and lowered for VTA/SRA adjustment.

4. Using your chosen protractor for your turntable, check cartridge alignment(cartridge body is parallel to indicated lines at the specified nil points) and offset, if either are out it will mean mean loosening the cartridge retaining screws and carefully adjusting it and then re-checking as in 1. Repeat until the stylus accurately traces the arc on the protractor. I often re-check 3 as well after this.

5. Remove the record and check tracking weight and adjust is necessary, replace record and check VTA and Azimuth again using the block checking tool, adjust if necessary until happy. Set the bias weight as per your arm recommends. Some people check the tracking weight at the centre of the record with the bias set, I think this is as some arms bias device can alter the tracking weight by quite a bit.

6. Put test record on turntable select 300hz test tone track and measure the dB level out of each speaker, use a 1' ruler to ensure you keep the mobile phone with the dB App running at the same distance and position from the speakers. If there is more than 1dB of difference between the channels then adjust the Azimuth of the headshell/cartridge, it only needs slight movement to get this right, aim to have the channels within 0.5dB at least, I do this at around 80dB. Repeat until happy.

7. Recheck as in 5 and if all is good, put on some favourite music tracks and see if it sounds good, hopefully you will be pleased.

A couple of things to note, ifs changing cartridges do remember to alter Phono Stage to MM or MC and setting to match the cartridges recommend load impedance and impedence. If after all the above you find it sounds slightly bass heavy, if you are able, try raising the rear of the arm around 1-2 mm to start with, check the tracking weight and then have another listen, and raise a little more until you like what you hear. If it sounds bass light and you are possibly feel it sounds a bit top endy then do the opposite. Some cartridges are quite sensitive to the VTA/SRA set up, especially the once with micro-ridge stylus.

Hopefully I have not left anything out, I am sure others will advise or correct me.

[kininigin]

6. Put test record on turntable select 300hz test tone track and measure the dB level out of each speaker, use a 1' ruler to ensure you keep the mobile phone with the dB App running at the same distance and position from the speakers. If there is more than 1dB of difference between the channels then adjust the Azimuth of the headshell/cartridge, it only needs slight movement to get this right, aim to have the channels within 0.5dB at least, I do this at around 80dB. Repeat until happy.

That's an interesting way to check Azimuth. Not heard of that before. Will give that a go, cheers.

[Barry]

Do you think the mobile phone app is sufficiently accurate and reliable?

[AJSki2fly]

Do you think the mobile phone app is sufficiently accurate and reliable?

Absolutely, certainly on say an iPhone or equivalent Samsung produced in the last 5 years of so, or similar quality, the microphones are surprisingly good, certainly above 100hz, and from the few test measurements done give a reasonably flat response up to around 12Khz. They certainly are not up to the level of Brüel & Kjær decibel meter which is for lab measurements and costs thousands, but they will be accurate to with 025dB, they are probably as good if not better than a £15 to £30 dedicated dB better purchased off of Amazon. Remember what we want to establish is the relative decibel level of one channel to another using a single frequency, so how accurate it reports the level in relation to an extremely accurate piece of kit is not so important. As long as the software and hardware produce a stable result of measured level then it should be good enough.

A modern mobile device is an extremely powerful processing tool, basically getting its accuracy from sampling and as they can sample very quickly and in many times can achieve a good level of accuracy especially when measuring a single frequency such as 300hz, even doing spectrum analysis from 20hz to 20khz they are reasonably good I believe, although the accuracy will be dependent on the microphones frequency

[Barry]

It is the repeatability I question.
How far away from each speaker do you place the phone, and how do you ensure the precise orientation relative to the speaker?
I'm still doubtful the repeatability can be within 0.25dB.

[Pigmy Pony]

It is the repeatability I question.
How far away from each speaker do you place the phone, and how do you ensure the precise orientation relative to the speaker?
I'm still doubtful the repeatability can be within 0.25dB.

Adrian does cover this in paragraph 6. But can a measured channel imbalance not just as easily be due to the amplifier's ouput or slight variations with individual speakers' sensitivity?