As anyone who’s ever installed a cartridge on a tonearm knows, we’re never given a specific number for setting the vertical tracking force, or VTF, but always a recommended range.

I expect most analog audiophiles do what I did when installing a new cartridge – set VTF somewhere in the manufacturer’s recommended range and leave it at that. After all, the range itself implies that the cartridge will perform well so long as we stay within it.

Over the years I’ve received various pieces of advice about where it’s best to set VTF in that range. In some cases the advice was to aim for the high end, in others to aim for the middle. And in a couple of cases I was told, just set it at such and such a number and “it’ll be fine.”

It wasn’t until I bought my first Dynavector Karat 17dx, the cartridge Better Records uses and that Tom Port recommended to me, that it even occurred to me that setting the VTF at a specific number might be a good idea. When I asked Tom what he set his at, he gave me a very specific number, 1.800 grams, a number at the bottom end of the range Dynavector recommends and one I’ve little doubt Tom arrived at through extensive testing.

Actually, if I recall correctly, Tom gave me a range for setting VTF for the 17dx – between 1.799 and 1.801. I remember this because the range was so narrow and specific, I found it hard to believe setting it that precisely would matter all that much. I mean, is having the VTF off by a few 100ths of a gram even audible?

Nonetheless, I set the VTF as close to 1.800 as I could manage and then would occasionally recheck it, particularly when I’d changed another setting. I say as close as I could manage because I wasn’t convinced the scale I was using was completely reliable. In fact, when periodically rechecking the VTF, typically the scale would show it as a bit higher or lower than I’d set it the last time.

The other day I checked the VTF, yet again, and my scale showed it was set at 1.807. I adjusted it to 1.800 and went back to playing records. Was it now actually at 1.800? Impossible to really know for sure.

But it did seem, if 1.800 is the indeed the magic number, that I’d finally hit it.

I was playing Miles Davis Friday Night At The Blackhawk, an extremely well recorded live album. My copy had generally sounded excellent. On this occasion, the record sounded . . . imagine this, exactly like a live performance.

Of course there was some occasional surface noise and, of course, I wasn’t actually listening to a live performance. It was a record after all.

But never before that moment had a record convinced me so completely I was hearing something I wasn’t. Somehow one tiny little change had managed to strip away just enough of the remaining artifice to lift the experience of hearing a record from very live sounding to uncannily real.

Quite frankly I was taken aback. Then I started to question what I was hearing. Fortunately some of my other records showed a similar, convincing freedom from artificiality, and I began to trust I was actually on to something.

It would seem that a few hundredths of a gram change in VTF is not only audible, but remarkably so. If there was ever convincing evidence that a VTF setting should not be just some a number in a range, but a very specific number, this was it.

What I find particularly interesting about this experience is that it’s not like my stereo was sounding in some way wrong before. It’s just that now it sounds a heck of a lot more right.

My hope is that when I need to set the VTF again, I can find the right number again, or more importantly, find the VTF setting that allows my best sounding records, live records in particular, to convince me I’m right there for the performance. I mean, is this not the gold standard in audio?

Of course I need to point out that this game changing VTF adjustment was something of a finishing touch on top of many other adjustments and changes that have been moving my system incrementally in this direction. I can’t promise that if you fiddle with your VTF endlessly the way I did, you’ll eventually get the same result.

Having said that, on my “living room” turntable, a much more modest “The AR” with a Jelco SA-250ST tonearm and an NC-2 cartridge, I also got excellent results adjusting the VTF.

Here’s a great example of setting and forgetting. I had asked the NC-2’s builder, Andy Kim, what VTF to use for it and he said 2g, so I set it there and never bothered with it again. Then after the experience I’d just had with my main turntable I thought “why not see if I can’t get similar results with the ‘AR'”?

I happened to be playing another Miles Davis record at the time, Workin’ and Steamin’. It’s not a live album, but a very well re-mastered version of some extremely well recorded sessions done live in the studio. Once again, it was already sounding great. Why mess with a good thing? Nevertheless, I decided to try changing the VTF to see what happened.

My instincts told me Andy had given me a VTF setting that was at the higher end of the range, so I decided to go a little lower. The Jelco SA-250ST has a dial on the tonearm tail that can be turned to raise or lower the VTF with ease. I lowered the VTF a little, then listened, then lowered it a little more.

This Miles Davis recording is in mono, which means all of the players roughly occupy the same space in the soundstage. I noticed that as the VTF got lower, I was hearing into that soundstage better, and that the bass, sitting near the back, became clearer and more satisfyingly distinct. Meanwhile, all the other instruments gained a similar distinctness and greater presence, and just as it had on my main system, the performance came more to life.

Clearly, even on this fairly modest turntable, one which doesn’t even have an adjustment for azimuth, there was a good deal of room for improvement by getting the VTF set more accurately. So those of you out there who have not yet revisited this adjustment might get a good deal more performance out of your turntable by doing so.

If you do revisit VTF, what should you listen for? Simple. Listen for the sound that’s the most natural, the most real and that brings to record to life in the most convincing way.

And if you’ve never heard a record sound that way before? Might be time to invest in some better records!