"Straight" talk


I can't emphasize enough about the importance of proper azimuth.  When even a bit off, the result is smearing of soundstage, emphasis of one channel or the other, blurring of lyrics, loss or air around the instruments...etc.  If Paul Simon (et al) doesn't sing in his own space exactly between your speakers....better get a Foz.
stringreen

Showing 6 responses by lewm

Stringreen, I am basically agreeing with you about the value of correcting azimuth.  On the subject of the Foz and its wonderfulness, I am not qualified, because I do not own one, and I do not fully understand how it works. I do know however, that there have been some complaints about it.  One possible problem I recall was a claim that it becomes inaccurate if there is even slight decay of the voltage coming from the battery.  That didn't quite make sense to me (because integrated circuits such as the ones that must be used in the Foz will generally work fine so long as the power voltage is approximately Ok), but that's what more than one person was claiming.  
Stringreen, Fact is, if one is going to be truly anal about maximizing the listening experience for each and every LP, then one would be constantly fiddling with tonearm parameters.  Maybe I should be embarrassed to admit it, but when I am in a listening session, I want only to get lost in the music.  I do take pains to set up, when I first mount a cartridge in a tonearm, but after that I rarely change settings except perhaps to fiddle with VTF once in a while, by a few tenths of a gram up or down.

I will never forget the first time I heard a Triplanar that was set up for azimuth.  At that point in time (must have been the 1980s), no one was talking about "azimuth" at all.  There were nearly no tonearms or even headshells that permitted azimuth adjustment. Herb Papier himself, the inventor and for many years the maker of all Triplanars, was doing the demonstration.  It was striking how the sound stage, imaging, whatever you want to call it, "locked in" (to use your words, which are very apt), when Herb set the azimuth correctly.  At that moment, I knew that I had to have a Triplanar, but I had to wait several more years until I could afford it. I guess I have become lazy.  However, I still have the Triplanar, a Reed, and several headshells that permit azimuth adjustment.
folkfreak, Perhaps I spoke to soon. I agree with you; I read the rest of the piece by Durand, and he does get it right, or at least I agree with the gist of it.

If you’re using an instrument to set up azimuth by measurements of crosstalk, rather than by ear, the question arises what is your endpoint? Are you shooting for equal crosstalk (L into R compared to R into L channel) or lowest db of crosstalk? The two are almost never achieved at the same setting. I have read arguments both ways, but I think the FOZ dictates you are searching for equal crosstalk. Perhaps that makes sense.

Clearthink, Say what you will about listening to old phono cartridges, but hundreds of us have benefited from Raul's now 254-page thread on the subject of MM cartridges.  I credit Raul with bringing these gems to my attention. There is a lot of agreement among the devotees about what are the best ones and what ones are mediocre.  The very fact that this is so indicates that aging does not have such a differential effect on one sample vs another, provided the cartridge has been properly stored in a home environment (not in the garage or basement).  Therefore, discussing such cartridges and comparing them is not such a ridiculous pastime. Ironically, Raul himself has given up the quest in favor of modern MC cartridges.  Perhaps you don't want to know that; it would conflict with the flimsy rationale for your vendetta.

Folkfreak, At first reading, I find a few problems with the blurb on the Durand website.  First, correct azimuth is ideally as they say, with the stylus perfectly centered in the grooves (however vague that is).  But most cartridges are not perfectly constructed, and the issue of crosstalk is most related to how the cartridge "reads" the L and R channels.  Reading takes place at the other end of the cantilever, where the coil moves between stationary magnets, in the case of an MC type, or where the magnets move between stationary coils, in the case of an MM type.  If the interface between the stationary and moving parts is not perfectly symmetrical, that will cause unequal amounts of crosstalk.  Second, they imply that badly adjusted azimuth is a major cause of channel balance problems.  That is simply not the case, and you can prove it to yourself by playing with the azimuth adjustment.  I found that extremes of azimuth adjustment affect channel balance by about 1 db at most, using the Signet analyzer.  Moreover, most texts on this subject will agree with what I say.  Playing with azimuth is no way to treat channel imbalance.  Azimuth affects crosstalk. I recommend treatises by Victor Khomenko of BAT and by another guy whose name escapes me.  If you go on Vinyl Asylum and search on "azimuth", I think you'll find their lengthy posts on the subject.
I've been all around the block with azimuth, aided and abetted by the fact that I own a Triplanar, which was once one of a very few tonearms that allowed precise adjustment of azimuth (albeit while messing up zenith).  (Nowadays, there are many tonearms or just headshells that offer this feature.)

Plus, I own a Signet Cartridge Analyzer, the grandfather of the Foz.  While obsessing over crosstalk using the Signet and the Triplanar, I found I was occasionally messing up the sound by canting the cartridge extremely to one side or the other in order to make the meter on the Signet happy.  This was the case in particular with my Koetsu Urushi, which was canted way over, like folkfreak said, in order to achieve best crosstalk numbers.  When I just gave up and set the Urushi so the cantilever was perpendicular, the sound was and is a lot better.  Maybe crosstalk isn't optimal, but all else is copacetic.  Now I have become a nihilist where azimuth is concerned.  I think a lot of this has to do with the perfection or lack thereof with which the coils of the cartridge are positioned inside the body, which is something one can not directly observe.  If the build was flawed, then pushing the azimuth to fix the problem is not without its cost to overall sound quality (and probably aberrant stylus wear).  I don't claim that it is not a good idea to have crosstalk maximally adjusted when possible.
I agree that improper adjustment of azimuth can result in suboptimal listening, but I fear also that improper adjustment of azimuth often results from either improper use and understanding of devices used to check crosstalk or use of faulty measuring tools to assess crosstalk.  In other words, on average, one might be better off with ignoring azimuth adjustment in favor of setting the cantilever 90 degrees with respect to the LP surface.

And for another thing, if your cartridge has to be set "well off to one side" to achieve whatever one defines to be proper azimuth, then that places stresses on the cantilever which I fear can also cause distortion.