On a good day this could take a half-hour. The height of each corner of the beam had to be the same, to within 0.001 (one-thousandth) of an inch. The arm was mounted on a large beam, and in order to adjust VTA, four Allen screws at each corner of the beam had to be loosened, then the entire beam had to be raised or lowered, the screws tightened, and the adjustment validated by listening and then repeating the cumbersome procedure if the sound/adjustment wasn’t right. This was a complex beast which used an electronic servo mechanism to control the motion of the arm across the record.
The Goldmund Reference turntable with T3F arm. Because we would test different cartridges, I had to regularly change the VTA on whatever tonearm we had in place, which was usually the Goldmund T3F straight-line tracking arm. We could readily hear differences in VTA when playing records of different thicknesses. Small wonder, considering that it was comprised of ultrahigh-end components like the Infinity IRS V loudspeakers, Goldmund Reference turntable and a parade of premium gear like the Audio Research SP-11 and Convergent Audio Technology SL1 preamplifiers, VTL 500 amplifiers and all manner of cables, tweaks and accessories.įor example, changes in VTA (vertical tracking angle, the angle of the tonearm/stylus to the record surface) could be dramatic on HP’s system. Things that might cause subtle to moderate differences in another audio rig, like swapping interconnects or cables, changing tubes or moving speakers a fraction of an inch, would be intensely magnified in HP’s setup. I soon found out that the slightest adjustments or changes to it could affect the sound – sometimes significantly. Harry Pearson, the editor-in-chief, wanted the system to be in top performing shape at all times.
Part of my job at TAS was The Care and Feeding of The System. (I worked there as technical director around 1986 – 1994.) Nowhere was this more evident than in the main audio system at The Absolute Sound. The higher the resolution of an audio system, the more that attention to detail matters.
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