"Straight" talk

Dear @stringreen : """  The point is that even a "bit" off is off. It sounds good, but not when care of adjustment is carefully fineallized. """

You are rigth and agree with and with the critical importance that AZ has in the quality level during playback. 

" Perfect " AZ set up means that the cartridge will pick-up truer grooves information  and  with stylus tip as the Replicant 100 in your cartridge the set up is a must to care about.

As I said the role of any single cartridge set up parameter is critical but it's almost imposible to have all of them exactly at the rigth set up due to its inherent dependent relationship  and the LP surface imperfections.

As @lewm pointed out any one of us can be as anal we want on several audio subjects, like me that I am almost obssesed to mantain distortions at minimum and of course that a precise AZ set up is important for my targets but in audio and especially in analog audio we have to choose for the best trade-offs that can fulfill each one target.

I'm with you.

@testpilot , thanks to put the ligth on tha issue, I always say that each day is a learning day for each one of us. Not all of us have exactly the same knowledge levels.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

 

 Re

Dear @stringreen : All cartridge set up parameters are critical an important but the problem is that exist no-perfect cartridge building for we really can be sure of our set up.

Now, almost all parameters has a intrinsical relationship that when we make some changes in one parameter some other goes off. Example: when we change VTA/SRA the AZ changes too, when we make changes in VTF VTA/SRA changes too.
In the other side the imperfections in the LP surface makes that our set up almost never is mantained during playback due to those LP imperfections.

I agree that AZ is a must to have rigth but at the end all the set up must be setting up in the same way, not an easy task.

Because of that inherent relationship in between all the set up cartridge parameters I don't like those advises or tips to set up one single parameter. 
Few years ago I decided to have a repeateable " bullet proff " whole test process for room/system evaluation that obviously included the cartridge set up. Through the years I was refinning ( time to time. ) that process and till today is functioning very well and makes my audio life more easy.
Important part of that process is that the track LP recordings are almost the same and I said " almost " because time to time I add a new track deleting some other because the new one is more " informative ".
This evaluation process took me not a week or a month to have it but several months/years to stay where it's today.

Obviously that for a process of this kind be succsessfuly we need in deeep experiences with live MUSIC and with several and different audio systems and a deep self training with the overall evaluation process, so it's not plug and play.

That kind of process can permit to almost any one evaluation of a room/system  in no more than 1 hour because when doing that evaluation we know in precise way WHAT TO LOOK FOR and not what we like it.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.