Origin Live Sovereign MKI - Manual (Page 16)

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you’ve been, always check the alignment again after tightening.
V E R T I C A L T R A C K I N G A N G L E ( V T A )
Unless your tonearm has a special VTA adjuster, adjusting arm height is usually carried out with the use of spacing washers (as with Rega
arms). In arms with a pillar / collar type vta adjuster it helps to put pencil or pen marks on the pillar to keep track of various heights. See
your tonearm manual for its recommendations on adjusting arm pillar height. The best approach is to tune-in VTA gradually by listening
to music. You know the arm needs to be lowered at the arm pillar when the overall sound is hard and bright, with thin bass or no deep bass,
edgy highs, and harsh midrange (of course, this could also be tracking force which is too light). Distortion obscures low level details between
the musical; notes so dynamic range is reduced. Transient attacks may be too sharp. Raise the arm when the sound is dull and damped, the
highs rolled off, the lows muddy and lacking definition, and transient attacks are dull. Mind you, this sounds an awful lot like the effects of
changes in tracking force (too light is edgy, too heavy is heavy and dull). They are different sounding but hard to explain. Start with the arm
a little low and very gradually raise it, first to where it is parallel to the record, and then so the back of the cartridge is tilting up. Keep track
of your settings so you can return to the one you like best where everything snaps into focus. The range of adjustments can be quite broad,
as much as 3/4” or even more (at the arm pivot). Play with the full range so you know what it sounds like and don’t be diffident.
A N T I S K A T E F O R C E ( P I V O T I N G A R M S O N L Y )
This applies an opposing, balancing force to the natural inward drag of a pivoting arm while playing. Left uncontrolled, the stylus would push
up against the inner groove wall, causing distortion both from mistracking and a cantilever skewed in relation to the cartridge generator. To
set, lower the stylus down near the label of a record with a wide run-out to it. Increase anti-skate until the arm starts to slowly drift outward,
away from the label. Again, this should be finalized by ear as you listen to music. If image placement is a little off-centre, or if things don’t
seem to be locked in solidly, experiment with anti-skate. Also, watch the stylus when you set it into a groove. Does it move to the right or
left relative to the cartridge body? This indicates too much or too little antiskating.
F I N E T U N I N G
You now have three adjustments approximated. Tracking force, VTA, and azimuth. It’s a matter of reiteration to optimize the sound. The
change in sound with each of these individual adjustments can be similar. It’s therefore necessary, in optimizing all three, to experimentally
move from one type of adjustments to the next, then to the next, in order to balance the optimization for all three. It’s helpful to listen to
female vocals as you proceed. Firstly try deviating from the cartridge’s recommended tracking force by small increments - about 0.2 of a
gram deviation above and below the manufacturer’s basic recommendations. Don’t worry about record damage from heavy tracking as most
record damage is actually caused by mistracking in the middle-to-high frequencies with too little tracking force rather than with too heavy.
If you’re getting mistracking at the low (lightest) end of the range and yet the low range is generally sounding the best (and on moderate
signals, not heavy passages), then chances are you have either a dirty stylus, a bad record, an accumulation of crud in your cartridge, or a
cartridge that’s getting old. Changes in tracking force can change how you want VTA and azimuth adjusted. If azimuth was initially adjusted
by ear, experiment with it.