Tonearm alignment question

Taylor,

Nice tonearm! The Phantom is at least the equal of my TriPlanar (arguably better). It will reward the best setup you can do.

I hope you have the the newly redesigned Graham tool that adjusts for the height of the cartridge. The original tool didn't, which severely impaired its accuracy. The new one's an improvement but it still can't match the results obtainable with a fine arc protractor.

I own two TTB protractors and they don't even match each other. Even if they did, they're blunt instruments vs. the micro-surgical precision of the Mint.

Well, shifting it to get eff. length and overhang right is better than NOT shifting it! ;)

If the spindle to tonearm pivot point distance is off by 2 – 3mm, will this affect the sound quality.

Yes.

And if the tonearm alignment is adjusted with a 2 point alignment tool to fit this distance error, would this alignment be okay?

There's no such thing as a 2-point TONEARM alignment. A tonearm is aligned at one point only, the design distance from the center of platter rotation to the center of tonearm rotation (aka, the spindle-to-pivot distance). I presume you were asking about a 2-point CARTRIDGE alignment. When discussing technical tools and measures please try to be precise in the use of terms, as to do otherwise causes confusion.

Some (not all) 2-point protractors might allow an accurate cartridge alignment to the chosen geometry (e. g., Baerwald, Loefgren, etc.) despite an inaccurate tonearm mounting distance. This would, however, result in a cartridge mounted non-square to the headshell. The resulting vectors would alter the amount of skating force from the tonearm's design and might alter energy transmissions between cartridge and headshell. This will result in changed sound, though in non-predictable ways.

IME, better sound results when the tonearm is mounted at the proper design distance and the cartridge is aligned using the alignment scheme envisioned by the tonearm designer. Can it be done otherwise? Of course.

It may be, though there are many other possible causes.

With regard to S2P and cartridge alignment, my broadest experience is with a TriPlanar VII tonearm using:

1. a universal protractor that allows tolerably accurate Baerwald cartridge alignment even if S2P is off; and

2. a "Mint" arc protractor custom made for the tonearm; it only works if S2P is accurate and it allows extremely precise Baerwald alignment (orders of magnitude finer than the TTB).

The sound when aligned with the Mint is much less distorted and the vast majority of Mint owners report the same thing, with any tonearm, so there is something to it.

I gather there's some reason your tonearm isn't/can't be mounted at the design distance?