Help me understand cartridge alignment

Clearthinker, Your remark about parallel tracking tonearms is totally beside the point, but someone will always bring up parallel tracking tonearms in a discussion about alignment, so you cannot be blamed. But it doesn’t help us or the OP to understand why he is happy with his SQ despite being 5mm off in alignment. My point is that tracking angle error (TAE), while it is best minimized, does not so obviously manifest itself as "distortion" in the electrical sense. For my evidence, I give you underhung tonearms with zero headshell offset angle. Such underhung tonearms can only achieve a single null point on the surface of the LP, where also the skating force is zero, and deliver gobs of TAE at the extremes of the arc across the LP surface, much more TAE than almost any "properly aligned" overhung tonearm with an offset headshell. And yet, my experience with two different examples suggests their TAE is relatively harmless to SQ.  I admit this is subjective evidence, and I have not made measurements.  But neither have the alignment police.

Beware.  Many so-called high-end cartridges do not have accurately mounted stylii.  They are often out by a few degrees, nulling all the efforts we make in set-up.

Uh,what does a linear tracker do to solve problems with stylii not mounted square to the cantilever? 

Wow, Audiophile blues, I am honestly glad some have good enough hearing to decern the fine differences here.  I hope those who can truly appreciate how they are blessed. 

As one that has impaired hearing, I just wanted to say, you guys are fortunate. 

Sorry for the distraction, no I'm not jealous, just sayin, enjoy.   

@gregchick0 , your unusual but sincere post made me curious and so I viewed your posts in the last month since joining this forum. You sound like an interesting person, truly. So sorry for the thread drift but how about telling us more about yourself. Nationality? Occupation? Why did you join here? System details?

Hey Greg- as a person who will no doubt based on family history begin to have a decline in hearing soon, I do appreciate every moment I can enjoy music!

Thanks for your post. Hope you have a great holiday season!