That's hilarious, Conrad. Let me tell you another funny story....
The deck I use for my needle drops is Mission 775sm w/ 774 arm. The deck is interesting in that the circular armboard is a kind of 3 piece chuck that clamps the arm pillar, which is tightened with a supplied spanner fitted with dogs that engage holes in the face of the chuck...not unlike how a metal lathe is tightened. This then, is secured to the MDF plinth with 2 recessed allen bolts that thread into a cast alloy ring on the underside of the plinth. The board and ring, being circular, are free to rotate if these 2 bolts are not tight, which at one time they weren't....
The length of the arm itself is adjustable at the base of the wand where it's clamped to the pivot casting, allowing the overhang to be adjusted instead of the usual slots. Just in front of the clamp is where the wires exit the wand and fly off into a socket plugged in behind the armboard.
I have several arms which allow me to quickly change cartridges without disrupting the VTA, VTF and overhang, all I have to do is unplug the wires and loosen the chuck to change arms. It's a pretty quick and convenient arrangement, and not terribly expensive compared to the cost of some of the exotic headshells.
So at some point, the wires exiting the wand starts bumping into the clamp, which should not be. Upon closer investigation, the arm distance was revealed to be roughly 10mm too short, a mishap I was inadvertently correcting by shortening the arm length to maintain the overhang. Turns out everytime I tightened the chuck I rotated the whole board, bumping the arm a little closer to the spindle each time, little by little, without even noticing...
Funny thing is, with the overhang being correct I could still align the stylus to both grids of an arc protractor I had drawn up. There was no evidence of IGD or any other tracking nasties to draw attention to the issue, only the wires pressing up against the wand clamp.
After fixing the issue and tightening the loose bolts...making sure they were
really tight, I learned a lesson in the harmonic distortion caused by angular error. It's pretty subtle....I doubt most people are even aware of it. Of course it's still there, just much less of it.
Live n learn!
