Feel Silly Asking This Question Alignment Parameters


I feel silly asking this question, but here it goes. Most of the arms I have owned over the years have came with proprietary protractors, and certain ones like the SME are really just overhang gauges. For other ones I have bought custom generated arc protractors for the specific arm. I will probably do so again with this Origin Live arm. However in the mean time i decided to set up using their provided protractor. 

When I went to install a cartridge on the table, I found I was not wild about using their protractor, so I decided to generate a Conrad H arc protractor till I made an order for an Accutrak one. What I found odd is that Lofgren A had the longest overhang at 16.8 mm and  Lofgren B at 16.3mm. The Origin Live shows 17.5 mm. Is the Rega type alignment that much different than Lofgren or Stevenson? I also noticed with the OL alignment that cartridge offset in the headshell was noticeably greater. 

What is also noticeable is the sonics of each alignment is different. To be honest, I like the overall sound of the OL alignment, but I also have this nagging feeling that it does not track as well. 

 

I always felt at this stage of my audio journey I knew how to align a cartridge. I have been doing it since I was in my 20's! Now I have a large degree of uncertainty of which alignment to choose, and what the implications are if i choose wrong. This arm is a long term keeper for me, so its a matter of wanting to get this set up optimized. 

 

Any insights you might pass along is greatly appreciated. Do have a good chuckle at my expense as it seems that I get into these moments of self doubt, and trying to find the way out of the forest of audio can be quite comical. 

neonknight

Showing 4 responses by pinwa

@neonknight If you can actually hear and remember the difference between the various alignments I think you might have a lucrative second career in turntable and room set up.  You would fall into an elite group of super listeners.  I'm not suggesting that you can't/aren't hearing those differences just that the overwhelming number of audiophiles can't and only imagine that they can.  It is much more likely that, even if you are hearing and remembering differences between alignments, the cause is more likely to be inadvertent changes in zenith, azimuth, and VTF than the geometry used.

I like the arc protractors this site generates.  https://alignmentprotractor.com/arc-protractor-generator.  They generate a useful chart that you can use to see what the distortion is across the surface of the record.  I believe that Baerwald is the same as Lofgren A.  All you need to know is the pivot to spindle distance and choose the alignment you want it to generate.  It is totally free and very accurate although the protractors you generate obviously don't have the mirrored surface the expensive protractors use.  Do make sure you put smooth glossy tape over the paper to prevent the needle from sticking and the cantilever possibly breaking if you accidentally move the paper back.

Personally, I like AlignmentProtractor.com's argument for their proprietary alignment and I use that but I would never suggest that I hear any difference.

@mijostyn I think you are talking about hearing errors in alignment which I totally agree are easily audible versus differences in the geometry you choose to align to.

But I am curious about your statement about "twisting the cartridge in the headshell a few degrees", by which I think you mean the zenith adjustment.  I have yet to find any information about how you can tell in which direction and by how much your zenith is in error.  Most of us simply align the cantilever since we have no way of aligning the diamond but as @macg19 points out and JR at Wally Tools has asserted the zenith error in how the stylus is mounted to the cantilever can significantly exceed the generally small errors that occur when carefully mounting the cartridge to the tonearm. 

Other than randomly twisting the cartridge back and forth and listening is there any way know in what direction and by how much the zenith error (including the error in the stylus mounted to the cantilever) is?  And I mean without paying Wally Tools $500 for their cartridge analysis service.

@tony1954 The Alignment Protractor that is generated includes 190 mm vertical and horizontal distances that you measure after printing and then you adjust the scaling on the web page and generate another protractor and remeasure etc..  I have had no problem getting them within 0.1mm which is a negligible error over 190mm.

@tony1954 And if there is any distortion within the page I haven't seen it but I don't think there is any way to adjust for that.  But honestly, 1/32nd of an inch over large distances doesn't seem like a concern to me.  If there was that much distortion in the "grid" that is printed I imagine that would be visible and it isn't.  

I have an aluminium Dr. Feickert protractor that I only use to measure spindle to pivot distances but now I wonder if I should worry about how much it expands and contracts with temperature changes LOL.