Using a Digital Microscope to Set Stylus Rake Angle
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- This video shows you how to use a digital USB microscope to set stylus rake angle (SRA) to 92 degrees, which is considered to be the best angle to start with, followed by adjusting "by ear". Why 92 degrees? It's all explained in an article you can download as a PDF file at this analogPlanet.com link: www.analogplan...
Short explanation: when records are cut the thread of just cut lacquer is extremely volatile and must be vacuumed into a collection jar. The thread must be removed from behind the cutter head, so the cutting stylus angle must make an angle of more than 90 degrees to the record surface in order to be extracted.
As you'll read in the analogPlanet story and in the PDF file, the authors traveled throughout America visiting mastering houses and measuring the cutter head stylus rake angles, which varied between 91 and about 94 or so degrees.
They chose 92 as an ideal compromise. However, if you wish to tweak it for every record in your collection, knock yourself out! I find 92 degrees suffices for most records. As for why this matters, you'll also find the answers in the analogPlanet post and the measurements in the PDF, which also includes a very interesting and useful discussion of various stylus profiles and their effect on sound.
One final point: if you have an Ortofon fitted with a Replicant stylus or another brand fitted with a Geiger stylus, the "contact patch" is located at the back of the stylus not in the center. See the AnalogPlanet story!
That’s good for a static measurement but the angle will change once you start up the record.
The thickness of the Vinyls vary also
This is a static adjustment, which is not accurate. The cartridge squats down when the stylus moves through the groove. This is a good start, but the arm will need to be raised a bit. Same goes for tracking force. It's higher when the record is playing vs static reading. Our ears tell the real story.
I love you videos Sir, but surly to be truly accurate, the VTA would need to be set correctly for the thickness of each and every one of the records you were listening too?
Plus, the VTA changes in respect to the phase of the bass end. Surly there are so many variables it just has to be a matter of (what suits most).
Listening to early (thick) vinyl, 1970's thin, and re-releases in 180gram?
Is that why a spherical diamond is less sensitive to rake angel opposed to a fine line or Shibata?
Add to that the accuracy of how the tip is affixed to the armature!
I would love to see an in-deapth youtube video on how manufacturers grind and set their syli, but I'm guessing that is their trade secret so no about to be put on public record.
Again thanks for all your work on the subject.
There are many such issues. Furthermore, is the tip that plays the grooves on the same angle as the general body of the diamond, it may not be.
Is the suspension of the cantilever the same on a stationary platform as it is in a groove with varying friction, no.
You should essentially get an approximation, these microscope sessions are only good for inspecting certain issues, not what I would solely use as an installation instrument.
What happens with thicker and thinner pressings. Messes with the sra
Why measure both sides? Can't you just measure one side to 92 degrees? - (Or the other side to 88 degrees?)
Soon to tune a turntable you have to become a researcher at MIT.
Yeah, this is that 'rabbit hole' madness... Just level the tonearm, get a good azimuth, and tracking force weight and call it a day.
This process would be ok if all records are the same thickness and have no warps. I like the Rega way, no adjustment and a good record. I add a good glass of Jack Daniel’s, and the sound always gets better. I liked the Rega visit videos you have made.
thank you! if I had adequate knowledge and attention span, I'd plot a chart that shows by how many minutes (degree fractions) different heights of warpage affects different lengths of tonearms. I see someone developing a system that laser tracks differences in height from a reference point and through a magnetically controlled suspension, constantly adjusts the tonearm height. It will cost $1,100,000, 2 will be sold......audiophilia is a very slippery slope indeed :)
The difference between first and second measurement was just 0.67 degrees. What difference that could made?
Wow, i just like to actually play recoeds on my turntable 🤷🏼♂️..record thickness , warping , humidity .... hell, even using a stylus brush will render all that faffing useless.
This is a static adjustment, when the needle sits in a moving record groove the sra changes.
All that time wasted for inaccurate results. Great call out.
@@mjot2360 It changes with different thickness records too, Then there's warped records. This is when you never enjoy music cause there's allway's something not perfect. Many of the differences heard by "audiophiles" is pure placebo anyway, tho they will never accept that.
@bradt.3555 Absolutely. I set VTA for medium thick records. This way, I'm fairly close with all that I play. No such thing as perfect. Most records aren't even punched out in the center.
now we're getting into the weeds.......Analog playback accuracy will yield very nice results. Each record will be plus or minus something and I don't think we'll hear that. But to get this close with a USB microscope type camera increases the velvety high-end and the stereo separation is phenomenal!! Tracking weight and Anti-skate and tracking pressure will work against each other and reduce stereo separation, also. It does pay to go a little crazy with this stuff. Analog audio makes you work harder, and it really beats that gritty audio of CD's
Thanks Michael, I invested in the equipment and followed your instructions with amazing results. The tail end of my tonearm is sitting low now but sounds incredible. I would never have gone to this angle starting from parallel and adjusting from there by ear.
Great video! I’m not convinced that it makes much difference because of various record thicknesses and record warping causing the arm to move up and down when the platter is in motion. Another problem might be a platter that isn’t 100% flat when rotating.
That said it’s probably worth getting the VTA as close to “ideal” as possible.
This is helpful.. At the very least I know how far off I am and work from there. Bought a cheap USB microscope.. And I found out that the needle is mounted outwards and seriously lack of vta. Must buy usb microscope.. It's helpful
What program do you use to measure the angle?
Ok, I have one from Monoprice. I will have to see if it can do that. Thank you!
The deeper you get into this rabbit hole, the less you're gonna listen to music, it will all start to sound like shit - the more you feed your OCD.
THIS.
but hey feeding your OCD can be fun too
@@ColocasiaCorm in the end you can't enjoy music, because you're overly critical and always suspect something is wrong!
Or something could be improved, and should!
You're no longer listening to music, only evaluating your Hi-Fi setup.
@@Lasse3 yes but you only need airpods to enjoy music. hifi isn't about the music. it's about performance engineering and luxury
@@ColocasiaCorm I have a pretty out-of-reach top shelf system myself...
I'm speaking out of experience.
I had my Speakers built to me, just 1 pair produced in total by hifi legend / guru Troels Gravesen, a Scanspeak affiliate.
Who builds speakers (tunes crossover) etc, for Scanspeak and represents them at the annual hifi convention in münchen.
I know all about luxury.
@@Lasse3 Your post should read:
'in the end I can't enjoy music, because I'm overly critical and always suspect something is wrong! Or something could be improved, and should!
I'm no longer listening to music, only evaluating my Hi-Fi setup.'
Some of us are able to evaluate hifi set up without it affecting us like it did you.
Why your disaster means it's the same for everybody is bollocks.
Michael (realize this is an old post but::::)
this looks good for reference, but doesn’t the stylus/cart squat when it’s riding the moving record...
I would be interested if you did an A to B ..
Moving vs stationary ...
Wonder if anyone will reply to your point...a crucial thing to get right. And different cantilevers have different compliances...
Thank you for the explaining how you achieve your measurements. Will LP thickness affect your measurements and thus sound quality?
You would need to repeat this process for each individual record surely ???
No sure if there is any comments on how to deal with the thickness of the vinyl since that will change the raking angle if the vinyl is thicker or thinner. Also the stylus pressure will change the cantilever rake angle of the stylus. Will it be that the combine of all the playable factors would result it the stylus sits at about 90 degree to the surface of the vinyl? Just a thought
This is pretty cool and intense Michael. Is it worth it to do this when I'm using a cartridge under $500?
It's about the shape of the stylus, not the price of the cartridge. audiotechnica, for example, sell cartridges with a line-contact stylus for much less than $500, which are very sensitive to SRA, but a conical stylus is not.
A bit OCD?
When you're dealing with something of this sort, I wouldn't consider this to be OCD. Proper SRA does make an audible difference. That's the beauty of this hobby, everything makes a difference.
When I win Poweball, Mikey is coming to my house to set up my VPI.
I thought it should be 91°you're not going to get an accurate reading because you're moving the horizontal line the 180-degree in line each side is different? why don't you have a fixed stable line on the tip of the stylist you could reference to
Interesting I use a glass ruler on a old record to try to get the tone arm as parallel as I can. I see that it’s a lot more complicated and I should try to find a small enough microscope to fine that 92* angle.
What program do you use to calculate the front and back angles?
Cost efficient
Hi Michael, How much does changing the VTF affect the VTA? Say if you added .25 gram, would you want to go back and reset the VTA?
Thank you Michael! It’s been a fun ride getting my system to the point where I can actually hear the effect of dialing everything in just right. What got me started was a visit to my downstairs neighbor’s pad and getting to experience what a really good stereo could sound like... Doesn’t hurt that my neighbor is your old friend Chip Stern :)
Cool
Great to see a demo how to do it. Is there any benefit setting the sra at 92 for my dl103? Or is it better to just keep the arm level? Cheers /Paul
DL-103 has a conical stylus, which makes fine tuning SRA irrelevant
@@Grrrr3FKAGrrrrGrrrrGrrrr Thanks that's maybe a big advantage of a conical stylus. /Paul
I bought the tools, and I lowered my tonearm to the absolute minimum, it definitely can't be right, and my measurements show 98°, what am I doing wrong? I followed the video to the letter 🥺
You might need to complain to your cartridge manufacturer... That's horribly manufactured, or you just put a very wrong cartridge on your turntable.
Cartridge height, headshell relative height (if removable) , amount of tonearm adjustment, and mat height will all enable/limit adjusting VTA.
Isn't it better to use some sort of optical turntable? Like a linear tracking optical fibre mechanism or an ELP turntable? If I get this correct you have to do this each and every time you get a new needle. In one of your videos you also mentioned that even if it's the same model of a cart it is near to impossible to get it perfect from factory. So why spend more than a fortune on a turntable + cart?
Or a CD player - I’m kidding. I love playing my records and that great sound they have but it isn’t for everyone.
@@robertyoung1777 I love my records as well but doing space science to get "pitch perfect sound" - something 99,98% can't even hear is a bit snake oil-ish, isn't it?
Hello,
doesn't it all change by the dragging force when playing a record?
Greetings
Probably, but so would the cutting stylus I would assume so it actually is probably the same.
Yes, the cantilever will rotate up and make less of an angle by some indeterminant amount.
You said you finish and fine tune by ear. Can you explain the process you use for that?
The microscope regulation give you a good starting point. Than the reality is that when the LP is playing the angle can change constantly because is not completely flato or because is bigger that the CD used for the regulation, so the real average angle can be different, for this reasons I suppose Michael end the process with the ear test. Ear are the only thing can determinate if an instrument sound like he should be. Listening session are a fundamental part of every Hi-Fi project.
Analog Planet Wow. 4mm is a lot of turns of my VPI VTA on the fly dial. I think each full revolution is 1/32" or 0.8mm. Plus don't you need to change the height even more for a 1 degree change on a 10" arm?
It's called, "I feel good about that last adjustment, and so it sounds perfect".
Isn' t it necessary to know which angle was used during the cutting process?
Analog Planet Jawolll my analogue leaderrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HAHAHA!
We do know. It's 92 degrees.... That's why we target that number. Industry standard in most cases.
Rega claims this is unnecessary.
Rega also claims you don't need to clean your records and the stylus will do a good enough job of cleaning them...
@@utub1473 One of the most misunderstood and strawmanned quotes I think I know.
How do I adjust the angle if my turntable doesn’t have a vertical arm adjuster?
It might be possible to do something to the platter. Mats can be added or removed, or you may need to add some shims underneath the tonearm. Some brands sell them, for others you might need to do them by yourself from some material. All these modifications may have some other effects to the sound. I imagine you might also be able to add very thin sheets of some material (aluminum foil perhaps) between the tonearm and the cartridge's front or back end to alter this particular angle but it will be difficult because you have to re-align the cartridge after every modification if you loosen the screws.
I have a test record with two signal,s out of phase and then I adjust the angle for minimum audio break through this also is affected by tracking weight .
You cant get perfect channel separation on every record because the are not all cut the same angle its very much a compromise . Using two signals out of phase is a good starting point at least with same electrical out put on both channels it will give you a better stereo image
Dambuster that is azimuth this is stylus rake angle. Not the same thing!
If you adjust the rake angle are you adjusting for best channel separation ? are all records cut at the same rake angle and what is the purpose of two signal,s out of phase on a test record ?
Dambuster rake angle has nothing to do with channel separation! That is azimuth adjustment, see article on stylus rake angle. On AnalogPlanet website and download PDF file! Drop down to “set up tips”
P.S are all L.P,s the same thickness ? it would seem to me using a microscope would suggest the tolorance is very tight and adjusting the tracking weight would also make a difference .
Hmm we go to great lengths of TRYING to eliminate factors or to control them. But this is only one of all of them that we can not completely eliminate..
You can adjust the tone arm height in back of the tone arm.
So you dail in exactly the angle you want. With a CD on the platter. As we all know a CD is 1.2mm thick.
The thing is that about 10% off a average LP collection is 1.2mm thick. 1.2mm is ~130g LP. And the scale goes up to ~220g that is 2.3mm thick LP records (and down to ~0.8mm).
So if we adjust so we are in a desired angle on 1.2mm thick CD then we need to raise the back of the arm with another 1.1mm when we play a 220g record.
And that is just to get back to and be in the desired boll park..
And then you can start to fine adjust for the best sound..
This is done for every record you play if you want the best sound quality.. ..because they all vary in thickness.. from 0.8mm to 2.3mm.
But honestly more than ~99.9% do not adjust the height of the tone arm for each record they play (only a small fraction have tone arms that can be adjusted during playback).
Then the angle is set once for all and maybe is ideal for ~5% of your collection (and the other 5% of the 130g needed the fine tuning because of the variance between different cutters).
In other words you will not have the sound quality that a CORRECT angle will bring to the table for ~95% of your record collection..
www.vinylengine.com/turntable_forum/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=93648
Analog Planet
Yes you say it your self that nobody can hear 0.5 degrees.
But if we make it simple.
Between cutter heads we have a difference from 91 to 94 degrees. And if we leave out the factor of the thickness of the groove that VARIES between records if you're in the groove or not! Of course that is a factor that comes into play, but let us to look only on one factor.
We keep it simple and we only look on ONE thing.. 91 to 94 degrees..so we have the same thickness of the record WHEN the needle are in the groove and play on two different albums.
So only in ONE factor (cutter head angle) we have 3 degrees difference!!
And YOU can hear that?
Yes you can!
Conclusion: So only looking on cutter heads angle variance you need to adjust your arm height between records. Because you can hear the difference of 91 and 94 degrees.
Best regards.
If you centred the stylus in the picture you'd have more to the left side as opposed to seeing so much of the right side to accurize how parallel you are to the flat surface? Just a thought.
I just about to make the same comment in that the alignment of the camera is critical to the entire process.
@@Stew666ableactually camera angle doesn’t matter. What matters is measuring to the Flat Surface, which its angle will also change as camera angle changes.
Though I like the method, I wonder how much the difference between the thickness of a CD and that of a record (which vary in thickness between them as well, obviously) needs to be taken into accoun when doing this.
Since in the end you'll be doing it by ear, as I would do too, I wonder; If you start by setting the arm up level and then just turn the height adjustment until you've got the tonal balance you like, isn't that as good as any other method?
Michael, will the program you are using allow you to draw 2 or more connected angles at once? If so, wouldn't it be faster to draw a first line along the top of the stylus and make a 90 degree angle from the line at the top of the stylus through the center of the tip and then continue to form a second angle by drawing a line along the playing surface of the CD. Wouldn't the second angle formed be the angle you are interested in and avoid the multiple measures and calculations? I've never had the equipment to do the calculations you are doing, so I'm asking part out of ignorance and part out of seeing a possible easier way through simple geometry.
Vinyl pleasure seems to have more pressing concerns. I'd just like to learn the means to eliminate distracting crackles, and pops other than my mental filter. If that issue can be solved, I'll work on perfecting cartridge alignment. BTW, simply following the cartridge mounting and VTA adjustment instructions accompanying my Technics SL-1210GR Turntable, which did not require a microscope or even a protractor, seems that alignment is good, since other than crackles, and pops, my records sound indistinguishable (distortion wise) from CD's of same music.
Washing records once crackling becomes annoying - needs vinyl washing machine, proper liquids like purified water (e.g. that used in car batteries), perhaps 100% isopropyl alcohol. Use brush before playing, every time. Buy an antistatic gun. Cleaning and antistatic should lower surface noise considerably.
@@McSlobo good reply shame the person asking the question didn’t acknowledge your reply.
@Charles Ludwig - You should look at the Sweet Vinyl Sugarcube devices. That will do exactly what you are asking for at a price starting at $1500.
“Vinyl is better”. Proceeds to spend thousands for a single adjustment to sound close to as exact as digital
why are you here?
Being super pedantic I should add that. You are basing your measurements on the cutting angle onto the accetate original. The vinyl copies made from the stamper will have a cure time/hardening coefficient which means that there is another variable that makes the original master different from the final copy.
You yourself have stated that you prefer copies from certain factories. Given that each factory has the same stamper, the factors realy do make a difference and hence the accuracy of setting VTA so accuratly is anathema.
Sorry to be so harsh as we all strive to get as close to the original as feasably possible, however there are physical limitations with vinyl that are insurmountable, merely by design.
I have driven myself crazy on VTA. Therefore I researched it.
The one jewel of information that came from my research is that an original pressing of a vinyl record (from the first master stamper) will always out perform a re-mastered 180gram copy, for the only reason that everytime a master tape is played, it looses some of its signal by being read.
I did a direct comparison from a 180 gram re-master from Grace Jones "Pull up to the bumper" to a mint copy from Disogs, and the difference was shockingly obvious.
The original had so much more detail in the top end, transient detail and clarity. All the re-release sounded like was that the engineers were trying their best to inject that detail back to the worn out tapes. Confession, I am a retired SSL engineer used to working in Eastlake Studios. I think my ears are good. I only had two number ones in the US but had to retire at 19 because I found the industy too much for me to deal with. Regards Rob Waldron.
Advark Merrygoround shut up