Test LP's Worth it?

I've owned the HFN&RR test record for about ten years. It hasn't left its sleeve in the last five and I've set up dozens of cartridges on multiple arms without it.

If I connected a cartridge with the channels reversed or out of phase (did that once, lol), I'd surely notice the moment I spin a familiar LP.

I find it useless for anti-skating, which I can adjust more accurately and faster by listening to music.

It does work for fine-tuning azimuth, provided that you have a Fozgometer or a bandpass filter + multimeter/oscilloscope and the time to fuss with them. I've done it. What it taught me is that I can fine tune azimuth as accurately by listening to music, and faster too.

Stringreen's right that you need one to use a Fozgometer. Of course that just brings us to, do you need a Fozgometer? ;-)

You don't need to drop $299, but do consider spending $110 for a Mint protractor (or similar, except that AFAIK there is nothing similar - Wally Tractors being difficult to get).

The Mint is worth its price. Most owners report audible improvements vs. generic and less precise protractors like the MoFi disk.

This comes from a guy who's comfortable with measuring - I used to spend hours on all that - but who now prefers listening to music (albeit with a highly optimized rig). For nearly any cartridge setup, the Mint and a decent VTF scale are the only measuring devices I use. To me they're indispensable. Everything else measures something I can set better/faster by ear or don't particularly need to know.

Mark 1 Eyeball and a index card is a less expensive alternative

For azimuth, instead of using a metal rod like VPI provides, I use a 6inch length of raw spaghetti.

Now those are my kind of setup tools!