I've been working on dialing in a Grado Reference Platinum on a Kenwood KD-500. I'm pretty happy with the alignment now, and have begun working on final tweaking of VTA, but am looking for a little guidance as to starting point. Right now, I'm running a flat alignment (tonearm horizontal), and the sound is pretty good, but I'm wondering if I can do better. In general, what VTA do Grado's like? Do they generally prefer a flat alignment, do they like to ride a little tail high, or are they tail draggers?

I have found the big factor with grado is not to run them to light 1.8 to 2.0 grams sounds best to my ears,I have never used them any other way but flat . If you go to the Grado Labs web sight you can ask Jhon Grado himself what he recomends.

I would imagine it varies from model to model, because I have a Silver that sounds better with VTA just a tad low, and VTF at 1.3g-1.4g.

used the DB systems protractor set up and used the backside of it to keep the
VTA parallel to the record player. So far I keep it by the book on the tracking force of 1.5 grams.

I set mine up slightly as a tail drager.I found a guy on the vinyl engine who told me to try 1.58 grams vtf and 1 gram anti skate.I could not be happier with this cart.Its melower and melower the longer i use it.It realy makes you realize your listening to a record not a cd.50 hours minimum before its broken in.Im at 300 and its really good.

Grado's manual suggests the front of the cart be perpindiular to the lp. That's how it was et up on the used tt i bought and it sounded great..until I somehow bent the cantilever and subsequently cleaned the cartridge interior of the back gunk. hint..grado's need that black gunk..

I have my Grado's tip leaning just a hair to the back, not much just a tad. The tracking force I have set to 1.8 because they are not the best trackers in the world. I think you will find that it may be different for yours though, as this is the setup for my Red and my green gets away with the tracking force at 1.5 and it needs to be completely paralel to the record to get good results. Best of luck, Nick

I set mine up slightly as a tail drager.I found a guy on the vinyl engine who told me to try 1.58 grams vtf and 1 gram anti skate.I could not be happier with this cart.Its melower and melower the longer i use it.It realy makes you realize your listening to a record not a cd.50 hours minimum before its broken in.Im at 300 and its really good.


Which model are you referring to here?

I'm going to have to look and see if my Silver is perpendicular to the record surface. That's an interesting way to get it properly adjusted.

mine got better bass and stronger vocals when I increased the weight from 1.5 grams to 2.0 grams.Same results with both red and gold but the gold dose track better reguardless.

Ok I have to admit that I was wrong about my Silver sounding better with the VTF a little low. Last night I bumped it up to 1.65g (approximately), and there was a big improvement. Tonight I pushed it up just a tad higher to 1.75g and it sounds better than it ever has, and that's saying something because it's a very nice-sounding cartridge. With increased tracking force I hear much stronger bass (an area the Silver already excelled at), more balanced overall sound, and, most of all, absolutely beautiful imaging. You can feel the space around every instrument, including vocals. I'm definitely hooked on Grado now, and I can't wait to upgrade soon.

Also, I too have noticed this cartridge gets "mellower" (I guess I would say that) and better gradually, but continually. I have far more than 50 hours on it, but I still hear improvements. I also agree that they're not good trackers, and it's very likely the higher tracking force helps in this area.

Wow, thanks for the follow-up remarks. The VTA is now set to neutral to ever-so-slightly tail-low. To be honest, I didn't hear much of a change from slightly tail-high, but pverall it's sounding pretty good, very smooth and natural without any over- or under-emphasis in any part of the sound spectrum that I can discern. I'll try bumping the tracking force up to 1.75 grams tomorrow and see what that does.

Ok I have to admit that I was wrong about my Silver sounding better with the VTF a little low. Last night I bumped it up to 1.65g (approximately), and there was a big improvement. Tonight I pushed it up just a tad higher to 1.75g and it sounds better than it ever has, and that's saying something because it's a very nice-sounding cartridge. With increased tracking force I hear much stronger bass (an area the Silver already excelled at), more balanced overall sound, and, most of all, absolutely beautiful imaging. You can feel the space around every instrument, including vocals. I'm definitely hooked on Grado now, and I can't wait to upgrade soon.

Also, I too have noticed this cartridge gets "mellower" (I guess I would say that) and better gradually, but continually. I have far more than 50 hours on it, but I still hear improvements. I also agree that they're not good trackers, and it's very likely the higher tracking force helps in this area.

try 2 grams if theres no differance set it back,but it might still get better.

try 2 grams if theres no differance set it back,but it might still get better.

I'm going to do that tomorrow, actually. I'm also more than likely going to switch the Silver over to my Pro-Ject RM-5 to test for "Grado hum" before I buy a wood body Grado for that table. Tomorrow my Benz MC20E2 should be here, and that's going on the Thorens. Of course that report will be in another thread.

I test my carts for sibilance using a Judy Collins LP. As the tail goes down, so does the harshness for her vocals. I know this works on my cousins Grado (can't remember the model) but we did a sort of test between my AT's and her Grado using the same album and that's the way the Grado sounded best.