Technics SL1200: Baerwald or 1200 white gauge?

if you want to spend $110 of piece of etched mirror - go for it

WRONG! You know nothing about the MintLP protractor. It is not etched glass. The protractor is printed on a plastic sheet that is attached to a glass surface. By doing so the lines are actually above the surface and this enhances the parallax affect. The laser printer used is far beyond what anyone has in their home or office.

Just put you cartridge square in the headshell (use caliper if you want) and measure the distance of 52mm from the connection.

WRONG! AGAIN! Many of us have tried to measure pivot to spindle in just such a manner. There is absolutely no way you can be as accurate trying to measure this as hitting the lines on the MintLP protractor. Much of the accuracy here comes from the way any arch-style protractor works. What sets the MintLP apart is the precision of the lines, both in the arch and in the fineness. Even so, getting pivot to spindle spot on is still only part of the story with proper alignment.

And don't forget, those engineers at Technics where only concerned with getting some high percentage of these arm/cart that went out the door just close enough to sound good. Getting one to sound great is up to the user.

So if you want to shoot holes in something you know nothing about, go for it. But please be a lot more intelligent about it.

Humorous read, but I won't bang my head against this wall. I agree with Tvad. It really isn't an issue of anyone having to have the MintLP to enjoy their vinyl. That is certainly true and maybe $100 is a lot of money these days. However, this price is certainly pretty tame compared with many audio tweaks. So anyone who wishes to explore what else may be possible with their current table this is a well respected way to try.

Have fun!

I would like to welcome Siniy123 and Rtollert to A'gon. I see you both are relatively new here and I hope you both will continue to share your knowledge with the rest of us. Hopefully, you can learn from us and we can learn from you.

Rtollert is correct. All alignment methods with pivoted arms is based on a model that does not have a 100%, dead nuts on final solution. It is all an approximation and as such there is built in error. The best we can ever hope for is to reduce this error as much as possible. And that is all the MintLP can help with. Minimizing the error. Otherwise it is just another arch-style protractor.

Here is an analogy that may help illustrate how the MintLP works. It is an over-simplification but I think works to help understand what this is all about.

Take a big, fat marker and draw and "X". Notice the size of the area that is covered by the two crossed lines. Now find the exact center.
Next, draw an "X" with a heavy ball point pint. Notice the size of the area that is covered by the two crossed lines. Now find the exact center.
Now draw an "X" with a #5 lead pencil. Notice the size of the area that is covered by the two crossed lines. Now find the exact center.

Get the idea?

And all the while you are doing this with the MintLP you are also continuously going back to check that you are still hitting the arch at the extreme points, one close to the spindle, one as far outside of the edge of the record as possible. It is an iterative process that takes a lot of time and patience. It really cannot be done in one session either. Think in terms of something like doing this every Saturday for an hour, for a month or so.

Fanatical? Absolutely!
Rewarding sonically? Absolutely no question about it. Necessary? That is up to the individual.

Mark,

Alignment, especially with the MintLP, is never done. It is impossible to reach "done". But each of us is certainly within our individual freedom to decide "I don't want to keep trying for more, what I have achieved now is good enough for me", and stop there. At least now we have a tool that can take us as far as we choose to go.

To me the overhang is only the beginning of what the MintLP can do. I found that much more benefit is obtained from iterating the stylus alignment.

All, do a search here on MintLP and you'll find two or three excellent and lengthy threads on this subject. Several people, most notably Palasr who brought the MintLP to our attention, have used just about every protractor out there and offer comparisons to the MintLP.

HI Mark,

Naw, you're not rude in the least. I live near Boston. Trust me. I know rude. ;-) It is often hard to get meanings across through forum posts. This is especially true for me since I am pretty challenged with the written word. Dammit Jim! I'm an engineer, not a journalist.

I am not saying you are wrong to consider yourself done with alignment. I suppose I'm just forcing my version of "done" as it applies to cartridge alignment. When I was a kid and would bug mom about when dinner was ready, she would always say "it's done when I say it's done".

That is my opinion regarding cartridge alignment. It can always be improved, and Yip has given us the tool to do so. I've done this alignment process several times and I do agree that the most immediate and noticeable improvement comes with that first session. I agree that this is because of the improvement in setting the overhang. However I have gotten more improvement since with a few more sessions where I am mostly trying to improve the stylus alignment with the cross hairs.

Now, some of this can indeed be contributed to finding better lighting and visual aides. The better you can see that tiny stylus on those tiny lines, the better you can adjust and the better results you can achieve. For myself, each time I improve my ability to see what is happening on the protractor I find that there is room to improve. And what I'm experiencing goes right along with what Yip has told me about what is possible. The issue is that after the first session or two the adjustments require finer and finer motor skills in order to nudge the cartridge ever so slightly one way or the other. I will agree that going beyond this point is bordering on obsession. But it is an obsession driven by the rewards in the improvement of playback due to better alignment.

Rtollert,

You'll need a lot more mathematics than that to worry me. :-)

Seriously, I don't dispute anything you have offered. I believe we are all aware that there are many, many forces acting on our cartridges. Some we can do something about, many we can't.

I am not familiar with the OC9 and what stylus profile that cart uses. I also have no idea how you set your table up. All I can offer to you about the possibility of improving what you have now is to perhaps contact Yip and ask if will give you a trial period. He is a very nice guy and I've not heard of anyone who hasn't been completely satisfied with how he has taken care of his customers. (Contrast that with Wally Tools.) I'm not trying to sell anything. I have no connection with MintLP other than to be a very happy customer. There is quite a number of vinyl enthusiast, most of whom are miles ahead of me in experience and hearing acuity, who were just as skeptical as you and Siniy123 about what could be achieved with this protractor. I was as well. Almost to a person, those who have tried using this protractor have been very surprised and very happy with what they were able to coax out.

As to anti-skate, that is a whole 'nuther conversation. I'll make it short to say that I, and many others, stopped using test records to set AS a long time ago. I use a couple of o-rings that weigh just a few tenths of a gram to adjust AS on my Triplanar. The total AS weight I use is just under a gram. If I could get away with no AS, and I can on about 80% of my 2000+ LPs, I would never use it. Nothing squashes dynamics more than AS. I do something very similar with VTF.

Both the Ken Willis and MintLP protractors are arch-style. But they are not exactly the same. The extra features of the MintLP are, IMO, worth the extra bucks.