HiFi News Test Record Azimuth

Triplanar will not be for sale, except maybe from my estate.

By the way, the TP azimuth adjustment, because it’s achieved by twisting the arm wand, also affects zenith. This for me is another reason to set azimuth for 90 degrees and forget it.

Wlutke, just want to make the point that azimuth adjustment is not done to correct channel imbalance; it’s done to minimize crosstalk. Adjusting azimuth does have a small effect on balance but the resulting angle required to produce a small change in balance will be ridiculously to one side or the other of 90 degrees, thus endangering the stylus and the LP if used that way for any length of time, and it will be way off the angle for optimal crosstalk.

If you are going to adjust azimuth "visually" (Chakster), then you really ought not to have a tonearm with azimuth adjustment capability, because in most tonearms, the default position of the headshell will already give you 90 degrees of azimuth, assuming that is the goal Chak has in mind. After decades of fiddling with azimuth and in fact being motivated to buy my triplanar tonearm for the very fact that it permits easy azimuth adjustment, I have come down on the nihilist point of view put forth by MC. Incorrect azimuth adjustment, in my opinion, can do more damage to the stylus, to the LP, and to the SQ, than can just going with 90 degrees. Yes, in some cases with some cartridges, that will be not the perfect solution, and in those cases perhaps also damage can be done. But I decided in the past few years, I can live with that. I also own a Reed tonearm with azimuth adjustment, and I own a Signet Cartridge Analyzer which permits adjusting azimuth electrically, using a Shure test LP which I own. I don’t use them any longer (the Signet Analyzer and the test LP; of course I do use the Reed tonearm with azimuth set to 90 degrees [top of headshell parallel to LP surface]).