Azimuth and the Fozgometer

I've regularly been able to reproduce the minimal crosstalk position (as measured by a Wally Analog shop) when adjusting by ear (and yes, the final adjustments are VERY small). The Fozgometer is faster, easier to use and less expensive than Wally's device, but unless it's more accurate it wouldn't seem to offer much value for me.

It would be fun to play with, but I personally wouldn't drop $250 just for that. YMMV of course...

...dead on azimuth is where the phase is aligned, not gain. the image snaps in based on phase being equal in each channel.

Now that you mention it Mike, this makes more sense than merely minimizing crosstalk.

Reducing stereo crosstalk certainly helps a binaural listener estimate the size and direction of a mock-single sound source coming from two speakers. But the image will only "snap into focus" when phases are precisely in synch AT THE LISTENING POSITION.

Given the effects of room interactions, which Fozgometer, Wally and oscilloscopes cannot hear, one could argue that final adjustment by listening is THE most accurate method for musical listening purposes.

For me as for you, setting azimuth is a simple, two-stage process:
1. make the stylus look vertical by eye (resting on a mirror helps)
2. fine tune until the image snaps in (this can be done listening to music if you don't enjoy test tones)

Measuring devices just over-complicate this straightforward, though vital, adjustment.

Agree the Talea's on-the-fly azimuth function makes it very easy. I've played with it for visual azimuth but didn't have time to fine tune aurally during my too-brief audition of that exceptional tonearm.

Of course, it is minimizing crosstalk at only one test frequency (1 kz on the Analogue Productions test lp), unless one finds other test lps with single channel signals at other frequencies.

Two reasons in one sentence why some of us will probably never buy it.

First, 1kHz is well below the optimal frequencies for setting azimuth.

Second, as Mike Lavigne and others have repeatedly explained, minimizing crosstalk provides only an approximation. One must still tweak from there to minimize inter-channel phase discrepancies. He, Dan and I do this by ear. So can anyone, with practice. The Foz doesn't do it at all.

For $250 the Foz quickly and reliably gets one in the ballpark. However, as Larryi also discovered, making the stylus visibly vertical also gets one in the ballpark, so close that "adjustment from visual, perpendicular alignment was extremely small (I cannot reliably see the difference)." How much more in the ballpark need one get than that? Why spend serious money to just to get in the ballpark? I can get there for free in seconds using the loupe and Mint protractor I already own.

As Dan suggests, azimuth is easily and accurately adjusted in two simple steps:
1) make the the stylus vertical by eye;
2) fine tune in TINY increments by ear.

The Talea makes executing step 2 much faster, but it can be done by ear on any arm with adjustable azimuth.