Can't sleep. I've been dreaming about lousy test scores and questions pertaining to things I've never seen before in my entire life. Dreams are quite interesting in that way...perhaps I just envisioned an equation which is the ultimate solution for world peace ? Can't remember it now, so oh well !

Paul, I'll certainly consider the gear from turntable basics, but I'd prefer to order the items over the phone if possible. It's my preferred method of internet shopping these days (ironic eh ?) since I have been burned by a PayPal scam. It was not I whom fell for anything in particular, but rather that my account which hadn't been active for about a year, was 'hacked' and almost ready to transfer every bit of money from one of my banks' checking accounts, to some thieves' account. (I feel it was a PP employee)

Luckily, I caught it before the transaction was finalized ! Needless to say, I try and be as cautious as possible these days, an unfortunate necessity which helps me keep my peace of mind.

Anyhow, looking at the tracking force tool that they sell, it would seem that there is no 1.75 g mark, which means I'd have to somewhat guess, and hope I'm pretty accurate. In that respect, I'd rather buy the other tool from the site I linked, which also makes me think that it would just be better if I bought everything there, so that I'm not paying shipping from two different places.

I guess I'll have to do the math and figure it all out. At this point, I'm not so concerned with VTA, since I'm not even truly convinced of the legitimacy of this particular infatuation people seem to have with this part of TT setup. What does sound like something that can make a significant difference however, is the antiskating force factor you mentioned.

I mean, it sounds pretty logical to me that if the tonearm has a tendency to want to quickly move its self from the record groove to the inner part of the record, that it would have some sort of effect on the sonic characteristics or perhaps the general physical wear on the product its self ? I'm also assuming though, that Rega ships their TT's pre-adjusted, but I'll call and find out.

Also, I'd like to present this article link to you guys which was written by Geoff Husband (TNT France) called: Exposing the VTA Myth ? Pretty lengthy, but very interesting read. Sort of adds some justification to my suspicions about VTA.

Exposing the VTA Myth ?

Back to studying, for now....

Doug