How important is tonearm height?

[6BQ5]

I would think that tonearm height is very important but I see so few turntables with the ability to raise or lower the tonearm. Then again, I don't really know the impact on the audio output from a tonearm that is too high or too low. Maybe I don't know what to look for and every turntable does indeed have this adjustment?

How do we get around the lack of adjustment? Does one just change the mat to another thickness and hope the new height is close enough?

-=- Boris

 

[lini]

Boris: Yup, different mats are one way, plane or wedge-shaped distance plates for the cartridge another, yet another would be spacer plates for the tonearm base - and at least in case the cart rather is too low than too high, one can usually also cheat a bit via slightly increased tracking force.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[bimasta]

The height matters. It sets the tracking angle of the stylus in the groove. With some cartridges, it matters a lot.

What tonearm do you have?

 

[6BQ5]

@bimasta : I have a direct drive Pioneer PL 600 with its original tonearm and Shure M97x cartridge.

-=- Boris

 

[jrtrent]

I would think that tonearm height is very important but I see so few turntables with the ability to raise or lower the tonearm. Then again, I don't really know the impact on the audio output from a tonearm that is too high or too low. Maybe I don't know what to look for and every turntable does indeed have this adjustment?

How do we get around the lack of adjustment? Does one just change the mat to another thickness and hope the new height is close enough?

Tonearm height isn't always the method used to arrive at the proper vertical tracking angle. My first component turntable was a BIC 960, and it had a headshell that swiveled up or down, the idea being to make the headshell parallel to the lines on the supplied gauge. My Thorens TD 146 came with a supply of spacers to fit between the cartridge and headshell, and a gauge to let you know when you had chosen the right one. The Linn and Well Tempered arms I had did have means to adjust the height of the tonearm. My current 'table is a Rega RP3, and Rega makes spacers to put between the plinth and the base of the tonearm, but Rega is less fussy than most about VTA. Their advice:

"Note: On Rega turntables spacers should not be necessary unless you are you using an exceptionally deep bodied cartridge from another manufacturer.

Arm height or V.T.A adjustment can be a controversial subject. Rega believes that the integrity of the arm fixing onto the arm mounting board is much more important than the questionable facility of arm adjustment. The arm should be reasonably parallel to the record surface or slightly lower at the mounting. The only time a spacer is necessary to raise the arm height is if the rear of a cartridge is hitting the record whilst playing."

I use an M97xE in my Rega without bothering with spacers, and it sounds great. A friend of mine does the same with an OM20 in his Rega.

Edit: Your PL-600 manual shows how to adjust tonearm height, but I find my M97xE to work quite well with the arm slightly tail-down.

 

[Poinzy]

I would think that tonearm height is very important but I see so few turntables with the ability to raise or lower the tonearm. Then again, I don't really know the impact on the audio output from a tonearm that is too high or too low. Maybe I don't know what to look for and every turntable does indeed have this adjustment?

How do we get around the lack of adjustment? Does one just change the mat to another thickness and hope the new height is close enough?

-=- Boris

I never owned a turntable with tonearm height adjustment until very recently. Variations in record thickness are so normally so small that, unless you plan on playing Edison diamond discs or using a changer turntable to stack records, it isn't worth obsessing over tonearm height. The stock setting is usually fine. If I'm forced to set the t/h myself, like on a modern DD turntable, then I set the height once and, except in extremely unusual circumstances, leave it alone.

I wouldn't keep a collection of specialized platter mats just to accommodate the different thicknesses of the LP's or 45's in my record collection. The only time I change the t/h on a deck is when I'm archiving very thick, shellac records. Otherwise I leave the t/h right where it is.

 

[Fishead]

Boris, most of the time the rule of thumb is to start with the tonearm as close to parallel with the surface of the record as possible. To achieve this, put on a record and see how yours looks. If you find that your tonearm seems "high" at the rear (pivot point), you might use a thicker mat. More rarely, if it is too low at the rear the mat may be too thick, or in some cases a shim as others have mentioned may be placed between the base of the tonearm and the arm board. This is not likely to be the case, but if so you may need to experiment with varying thicknesses of shims to get to the parallel configuration.

After that, I would agree with Manfred that varying your tracking force (which probably has more influence on the VTA than arm height in many cases) will be best to fine-tune the angle......and in Tom Fletcher's words (RIP), "listen, then listen some more, and that will tell you more than anything else where the sweet spot is....."

Have some fun and let us know what you come up with......good luck.

 

[jrtrent]

Boris, most of the time the rule of thumb is to start with the tonearm as close to parallel with the surface of the record as possible. To achieve this, put on a record and see how yours looks. If you find that your tonearm seems "high" at the rear (pivot point), you might use a thicker mat. More rarely, if it is too low at the rear the mat may be too thick, or in some cases a shim as others have mentioned may be placed between the base of the tonearm and the arm board. This is not likely to be the case, but if so you may need to experiment with varying thicknesses of shims to get to the parallel configuration. . .

Just curious, why do you recommend shims or mats of varying thickness rather than the tone arm height adjustment of the OP's PL-600? Or am I misreading the manual I found at Vinyl Engine?

 

[onwardjames]

I'd like to know about adjusting that tonearm height. I have a PL-600, and it needs a tiny raise in the back.

Edit - Hey, I found it. Never knew that was there, lol.

 

[for_p1]

I would think that tonearm height is very important but I see so few turntables with the ability to raise or lower the tonearm. Then again, I don't really know the impact on the audio output from a tonearm that is too high or too low. Maybe I don't know what to look for and every turntable does indeed have this adjustment?

How do we get around the lack of adjustment? Does one just change the mat to another thickness and hope the new height is close enough?

-=- Boris

This is very dependent upon stylus type and tonearm length. For spherical stylus and 10-12" tonearm - very little difference. For micro ridge or other other type of line contact stylus and short tonearm - this is very important: 2mm difference completely alters sound. Keep in mind that LPs were pressed using different SRA - there is a significant variation between LPs made in 1950-60s and late 1970-1980s.

 

[lini]

Boris: Sometimes it's good to do a little guesstimation, so one gets a better idea of the dimensions/ranges of a "problem". For a half-decent guesstimation of the impact on SRA/VTA a certain height deviation from horizontal arm position would have, you can simply calculate: angular change = arcsin (height deviation/effective length). As mentioned, this is pretty simpilfied, and we could certainly further refine it (for example by aditionally either multiplying or dividing the effective length with/by the cosine of the offset angle, depending on whether the arm sports a vertical pivot axis that's angled perpendicular to the offset angle or not...), but to get an idea it already does the job well enough. So let's assume a 220 mm arm and a height deviation of 2 mm, the SRA/VTA should change by ca. 0.52° - not exactly a lot...

I'd deem exemplar tolerance of tip profile (in case of more sophisticated tip shapes), diamond and cantilever orientation to be easily as high a half a degree, so setting replicability over several cart/needle exemplars could be expected to be problematic in any case. And replicability over different records would be yet another problem. So in the end it boils down to: How much would you like to sweat the problem?

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[Fishead]

Just curious, why do you recommend shims or mats of varying thickness rather than the tone arm height adjustment of the OP's PL-600? Or am I misreading the manual I found at Vinyl Engine?

Yep, you are right on jrtrent.....I assumed from the OP's post that he was saying there was no adjustment on his table, but now that your reply had me curious, I went to VinylEngine and found exactly what you are saying.

Boris, if you don't have the original manual, you can go to this site, register for free, then go to the "Library" section and search for your table. It will provide you with the owner's manual, and on page 7 shows the procedure for adjustment:

https://www.vinylengine.com/library/pioneer/pl-600.shtml

If you have not already registered, you will be asked to do so and log in, after which it should take you to that page.

Good call jrtrent, my assumption was incorrect and what I describe is the process for an arm that is not adjustable by the manufacturer's design for user convenience.

 

[jrtrent]

Yep, you are right on jrtrent.....I assumed from the OP's post that he was saying there was no adjustment on his table . . .

Ah, got it. I had assumed that, too, and only had my attention drawn to the OP's post #4 about his PL-600 because it popped up just as I was posting #5 (and was the reason for my adding the "edit" to that reply).

 

[lini]

Fish, jrt: I understood Boris, as if he was wondering what owners of turntable models without arm height adjustment would do to deal with the problem, and whether it's that much of a problem at all...

And I think both points have been covered pretty well by the replies so far - also considering the usual bandwith of opinions on pretty much any topic in the realm of hifi.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[6BQ5]

Thanks for the replies, everyone!

Just to clarify, I know my PL 600 has a height adjustment and I adjusted the tonearm according to the manual. All is well.

My original question came from two experiences, one has happened and one has not.

First, I have some heavy presses and some paper thin presses. The extreme difference between my heaviest and lightest vinyl is enough to see the tonearm angle downward on the light presses and angle slightly upward on the heaviest. It's not like a 45 degree slope but just one of those things that you notice after enough hours of playtime. I wondered if having the tip of the stylus angle forwards or backwards would result in a loss of information or even damage to the original groove.

Second, one day I will want to replace my Shure with something one step up. I'm kind of a perfectionist and I am capable of spending hours at a time fine tuning a system. If there is a need to raise my tonearm by 2 microns then by golly I will find out how to do it and do it!! This makes a new cartridge an exciting but daunting prospect for me. Then I ran across a Sony PS-T2 that I am thinking of buying for my for son as a birthday present and it doesn't have height adjustment. It would drive me crazy not having it because I would be thinking something is missing ... but it would be a relief since that's one less thing I need to fiddle with. As @lini said above, maybe the resulting deviation is so small and the impact on audio output even smaller that it's just not worth sweating over it.

Ok, I'm done thinking out loud here.

-=- Boris

 

[jrtrent]

As @lini said above, maybe the resulting deviation is so small and the impact on audio output even smaller that it's just not worth sweating over it.

I grew up with record changers in a console, and my first two turntables (a BIC, then a Garrard) were record changers, too. I didn't worry about how different the VTA could be when playing up to six records stacked on the platter, and, until reading about it in hobby forums, it never occurred to me to be concerned about the effect of thin vs. thick vinyl while playing a single album. Lini pointed out that it takes a 2mm change in tone arm height to effect a 0.52° change in VTA. A turntable like the SL-1200GR has an adjustment range of 0-6mm, and thus able to adjust VTA by up to 1.56°. Roy Gandy has noted that a 0.1 gram change in tracking force can alter VTA by about 1.5° and a 5° F change in temperature alters VTA by about 1°. He also mentions that the record cutting angle of an album varies by at least 7° over the course of a record side. I like being able to follow a manufacturer's directions for setting up the tone arm, but I also think I'm in the not worth sweating over it camp when it comes to small changes in VTA.

 

[lini]

jrt: 1.5° of SRA/VTA change due to a VTF change of 0.1 g would rather seem on the very high side to me - that would take a very high static compliance in combination with a very short cantilever. For a guesstination one can apply basically the same formula as above, just the the height deviation would now be the VTF alteration times the static compliance (vertical, if separately specified), and the effective length would be the effective length of the cantilever. It's also somewhat simplified, but should also already provide a pretty decent approximation. So, just for example, for a 4 mm cantilever, 35 cu static and 0.1 g we'd get ca. 0.5°.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini