[drphoto]

Ok, I'm a newb remember, so forgive me if this seems like a looney idea.

As I understand it VTA is the angle of the arm and the cantilever to the record. The arm should be roughly parallel. I've seen a few debates over the ideal optimal angle of the cantilever from slightly posive to slightly negative.

However in general, my take is if the VTA is low, the sound will lean toward the low end and be maybe somewhat muddy. If too high, the sound will be more bright and shrill.

This bears out what I've heard. W/ my Rega RB-301, famous for lack of VTA adjustment, when in stock form it sounded a bit thick. Installing the 2mm shim really gave it a bit of sparkle. (Rega apparantly want's to sell their carts, which are somewhat less tall than most)

Now tonight I threw on a copy of Jeff Beck's "Blow by Blow" which sounded a bit thin. I thought, hmmmm.....what if I put on the mat from the old Thorens, which is thicker than the stock felt mat, hence effectively lowering the VTA?

Sure enough, it did make it a bit less bright.

Is this a valid approach? Could a company make and sell relatively cheap mat shims for  the Rega owners? I mean, why spend hundreds for a device like the Pete Riggle that crank the arm up and down, when for a few bucks worth of plastic, borosillicate, carbon fiber or whatever crazy stuff you'd deem market worthy would work as well.

Of course, this only works to lower the VTA, unless you could somehow come up w/ thinner mats than the stock version.

Am I just losing my mind in my old age?

[TheChairGuy]

While Pete Riggle sought to make infinitely and on the fly VTA with his device....in the end, it turned out that be completely de-coupling the tonearm from the armboard was at least as much or more benefit than the actual VTA adjustability.

Go look at his website and you will read more about the profound impact on the sound his product has...and almost as an afterthought the VTA adjustability.

I use mats from time to time to shim the VTA more correctly. Don't get too hung up - level is usually plenty good enough.  I'm not quite as care free as Roy Gandy of Rega (who claims VTA doesn't matter at all)...but it's a secondary concern, overall.

John   

[neobop]

Hi Dr,
Seems you're sensitive to VTA/SRA anomalies, welcome to the club. I'd look into the Riggle adjuster if I were you. I never used one, but plenty of people swear by the improvement. Herbie makes lots of highly regarded mats in varying thickness if you want to go that route. IMO VTA on the fly can't be beat, if it makes as much as a difference as it seems to you. I'm at the point now, where I don't use my arms that much that don't have it.

If you find yourself wanting to tweak the arm height on many records, as opposed to only a few, then it will be a great enhancement. Stopping the record and changing mats can get tired pretty quickly. Like I said, I can't really give an endorsement for the Riggle devise, although I plan on getting one for an Alphason 100S I have.

If on the other hand, you find that changing arm height is a relatively rare occurrence, you might want to think about it's usefulness.
neo

[Letitroll98]

And there are many cheaper VTA adjustment devices relative to the Pete Riggle device.  I have heard that the decoupling of the arm improves the sound and that you can adjust VTA on the fly (albeit very carefully) with the Riggle unit, but I was put off by ungainly look of the whole thing and the need for both a larger hole bored and attaching a device to hold the wand in place.  And it lifts the arm about 2mm by itself so you can't go with Rega carts or anything shortish like Empires etc.

I went with one of the very thin walled aluminum adjusters (Expressimo for me, there are others) that you don't need to bore a larger hole for on Rega tables (a bit of sanding with a dowel on my VPI).  I think it was about $50 or so, raises the arm only .5mm on its own, doesn't adjust on the fly, but I pretty much set and forget VTA for each cartridge.

A general note on VTA (actually SRA) adjustment.  I think its importance varies quite a bit for different cartridges.  For example absolutely critical for higher end Grados, much less so for the Prestige line.  Not a universal rule, but by thumb the finer the stylus shape and the lower the compliance, the more VTA matters.

Oh yeah, the original question, sorry.  Yes you can absolutely adjust VTA by different mat thicknesses.  The only caveat is that the change in mat will also change to sound to a greater or lesser degree, so it makes judging the change in sound a bit harder.  But if you go by setting the top of the cartridge body level and not stressing any further, it works just fine (e.g. not for the terminally tweaky, which you may become after being in vinyl for a while).     

[bacobits1]

Herbie's makes a lot of different thicknesses of mats.
Check it out.
http://herbiesaudiolab.net/ttmat.htm

D