Cartridge Alignment Newbie Question

Marcus, always let your alignment gauge be your point of reference. Remember, you are establishing tangency between your cartridge and the record surface, not the tonearm and the record surface. Most alignment devices presently available are establihing the ultimate point of tangency at approx. the middle of the record playing suface.

In some cases, the cartridge may appear visually to be misaligned relative to the headshell portion of the tonearm. I presently use a VPI/RB900/CLEARAUDIO combination and the cartridge is not perfectly aligned in the headshell.

This will always be somewhat of an issue with a fixed point tonearm as perfect tangency will only be had at one small point of the record surface. On average, there is approx. 3-5 degrees of tangential tolerance since a fixed point tonearm cannot track tangentially accross the complete record surface.

Also, you may want to check out some of the posts regarding setting up your RB300. There are some interesting tricks regarding setting tracking weight and anti-skate (or lack of).

Good luck!

Marcus, very few cartridge bodies are perfectly aligned with their cantelivers and stylus. so when you are looking at the relationship between the cartridge body and the headshell.....don't even worry about how that looks. it is only about where the tip of the stylus is (and it's alignment and angle). i have 3 very expensive cartridges that all have noticeable alignment problems in respect to body verses stylus.....and all play perfectly once the stylus is properly located.

now if the canteliver is bent that is another story......it is important that the relationship between the canteliver and the magnet assembly be aligned for even channel separation.

It shard chwecking the cantilever so what about my drawn lines on the alignment tool question?

-Marcus

Marcus, i'm not familiar with your particular cartridge. it may be that based on the tools you have you will have to rely on the cartridge body for alignment. if you have alignment tools that measure the stylus then that would always be the more valid approach.....but no approach is perfect so don't stress on it too much. if you have conflicting measurements then the best approach would be to try a few different ways and listen for which way sounds best and tracks the best.

enjoy

I've been away from vinyl for a long time, but I did use a DB alignment protractor, which I still have. If you're interested in buying it, let me know.