Arm and Armboard installation
Locate your metric ruler referenced in the preparation step.
Set your tonearm, cartridge and cartridge mounting tools on your work area and locate
the following supplied parts which were supplied with your turntable:
- 5/16" hex wrench (supplied) for armboard mounting / overhang adjustment
Standard Armboard
- 3/8" stainless steel socket head fixing bolt and washer
- Standard Armboard
- Armboard spacing pillar (1/2" tall disk)
Stelvio Armboard
- 3/8" stainless steel socket head fixing bolt and washer
- Stelvio Armboard
- 2" stainless washer
Your board will have been drilled for your tonearm. This step varies depending on your tonearm.
As noted above, these instructions are specific to the Triplanar tonearm. The differences have
are noted aboves.
- You have easy access to the underside of the armboard
- You can easily set the pivot to spindle distance (overhang) at any time
Mount the Stelvio armboard to the turntable base
Insert the 3/8" stainless pivot bolt and washer into the counterbored hole in the front of the armboard.
Place the 2" diameter stainless washer on the turntable base over the rear mounting hole.
Place the armboard onto the base - passing the pivot bolt through the washer, and tighten the pivot bolt with the supplied
hex wrench. Leave the bolt loose enough so that you can rotate the armboard in fine increments.
Rotate the armboard counterclockwise until the cylindrical damping chamber is about 1 or 2 mm from the turntable base.
This is about two thicknesses of the type of cardboard which backs up most writing pads.
Now is a good time to practice rotating the armboard in small increments - the sort that would change the pivot to
spindle distance by perhaps 1/2 mm. This will give you a feel for the sensitivity before mounting your cartridge.
If you choose to use alignment option #2 below in order to adjust the overhang, you will be performing these fine rotations
in order to align your cartridge.
After practicing, restore the armboard to the orientation noted above. Shortly, you will be setting the pivot to spindle
distance to exactly 233.5 mm.
If you've adjusted the pivot bolt tightness correctly, the armboard should rotate very smoothly.
Mount the tonearm, using the three mounting screws and washers already affixed to the armboard.
The washers should fit between the screw heads and the arm mounting plate - to protect the surface from scratches.
There is a bit of play between the arm mounting screws and the arm mounting holes. This will permit some fine adjustment of the
tonearm's orientation in the next step.
Leave the screws loose enough to perform this orientation.
Note: You may need to temporarily remove the knurled locking nut on the left side of the VTA adjustment tower in order to
access the left rear mounting screw with a screwdriver.
Partially tighten this mounting screw along with the other 2 screws.
Restore the knurled locking nut and tighten it to fix the orientation of the tonearm to the VTA tower.
Note:
Whenever you are either playing a record (after adjusting VTA in-play), setting the pivot to spindle distance during tonearm
mounting, or adjusting the overhang with your protractor, this nut must always be locked in place.
When the nut is loosened, the arm is free to rotate about the VTA tower which changes the pivot to spindle
distance along with the overhang.
Orient the tonearm to the armboard.
Rotate the tonearm base about its three fixing bolts to perform this fine adjustment.
When the tonearm is locked in its rest position and viewed from the top, the right side of the arm wand should
bisect the front 3/8" socket head pivot bolt on the armboard.
The right half of the socket head bolt should be visible when viewing it from above.
This will accomplish two things, when the tonearm is locked in the arm rest:
- Permit access to the tightening bolt with the hex wrench (just barely).
- Orient the tonearm so that it is oriented from front to back - with the arm wand centered approximately over
the front pillar.
Set the pivot to spindle distance.
The 3/8" socket head pivot bolt should still be loose enough to allow the armboard rotate freely.
Measure the distance from the record spindle to the tonearm bearing pivot (the small hex nut on top of the arm pillar).
Rotate the armboard until you measure as close to 233.5 mm as is possible. You'll find this easier to do than you'd
think, because the curve on the record spindle helps you to view it from directly above - minimizing any parallax.
Don't worry about being perfect, because you'll achieve this when adjust the overhang with your protractor.
Verify the tonearm's orientation when locked in the arm rest
With the above adjustments made, you should find that the tonearm is oriented nicely, with the arm wand roughly centered
above the socket head bolt which holds the front pillar in place.
If the orientation doesn't suit you, you can work through the above steps - making minor adjustments in the rotation of the
arm base about its three mounting bolts.
Remember however to allow access to the pivot bolt with the hex wrench when the tonearm is locked in the arm rest. In
practice, you may have to tilt the hex wrench slightly to insert it into the socket head.
Mount the cartridge.
At this point, we recommend installing the motor pod and belt, for two reasons:
- To get a feel for installing the belt before you have the cartridge mounted - especially if your cartridge doesn't
have a stylus guard. After you've performed this operation once, you'll be comfortable doing it with a cartridge
installed.
- The motor / belt assembly helps to keep the platter from spinning when you are setting the overhang with your protractor.
Locate the cartridge screws in the center of the headshell mounting slots. For the "average" cartridge where the stylus is 10mm
forward of the mounting bolts, this will position the stylus 250 mm from the bearing pivot - the tonearm's nominal
effective length. Make minor fore and aft adjustments as necessary.
Set the tracking force to the middle of the range recommended by the manufacturer. Adjust the VTA so that the arm wand
is approximately parallel to the platter. Reference our inventory of sample installations, in the
photos documented at the bottom of this Triplanar Mounting Page. Verify once more that the tracking force is still the
expected value.
At this point, you have the option of adjusting the overhang in two ways:
- In the conventional manner - performing all adjustments at the cartridge screws. In this case, lock down the
armboard pivot bolt and verify that the pivot to spindle distance has not changed from 233.5 mm
- Performing all adjustments by adjusting the overhang. In this case, tighten the cartridge screws and adjust the
overhang by rotating the armboard in small increments (either clockwise or counterclockwise) in order to achieve
correct alignment as measured with your protractor.
Note:
if you use this method, always return the tonearm to the arm rest and lock the tonearm in
place before rotating the armboard. If you are at all uncomfortable with this technique, then adjust the overhang
in the conventional manner.
Remaining Adjustments
Since you'll be referring to the remaining adjustments more frequently, we've located these comments in their own
section - Setup Guide, which you can access by either clicking this link or
the left side sub-menu on all of the the Triplanar Tonearm pages.
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