Fozgometer?


Just yesterday read in Stereophile about this new tool for setting azimuth electrically. Sounds interesting, but also IMO is slightly borderline for myself to decide whether the cost ($250) would justify buying such a tool?

Downside with myself, is my Arm is not adjustable in azimuth, unless I maybe throw a Pipe Wrench on the Armtube?

Still, would be interesting to get other's opinions, and hopefully soon, some user's accounts of such a tool? Mark
markd51
Does anyone know how this compares to the Feikert azimuth plus?

Ciao,
Audioquest4life
I purchased a Fozgometer right after CES when the lead time was only a few weeks. The unit is very well made and works prefectly of course you need a test LP, I picked one up that had the correct test tones at a local record store for about $10, I got lucky. I bought the meter specifically for my Clearaudio Reference table with Souther TQ1 Linear arm. I was having a lot of trouble dialing in the cartridge, if you are at all familar with the arm you will understand why. Everything was set correctly but it still did not sound as it right. We played with the azimuth using a level, measure, then eyeballing it, then my friends eyeballed it, all with the same result. Checking the azimuth with the meter confirmed our suspisions, the azimuth was way off. A slight adjustment, then rechecked it with the meter and the azimuth is dead on. What took hours of guesswork was completed in 5 minutes with the Fozgometer meter. The sound of the table is now perfect. I checked the other arm on the table, a Clearaudio Satisfy which has adjustable azimuth but it was dead on as was the arm arms we checked like a Rega 300/301s where there is no adjustment. Good tool to pick up if you need it.
I purchased a Fozgometer several weeks ago, and I have not had much luck with it. The needle jumps around too much to get a good reading. The manual does indicate that this may happen with undamped unipivot tonearms, which is what I have (JMW9 Signature). I suppose I could add damping fluid and try again, but if I'm not planning on using the TT with damping fluid, it seems like a waste of time.

Also, I didn't have the Acoustic Sounds test record. I have the Hi-Fi News test record. The difference is that, instead of a 1khz tone, it has a pink noise tone. I doubt if that would make a difference, though. Either should work.
No, I believe it would make a difference in that with pink noise, and white noise, it would be even more necessary to have a 1kHz notch filter as these distribute power over the spectrum. I would guess that even with a 1kHz test tone on an LP you would still do better with a notch filter because there is noise in a wider frequency band induced by the scratching of the stylus.

General statements, I'm not implying anything towards the Foz-gizmo. I'm guessing it is a DMM with a built in filter?
Here is a much cheaper and better way, which is really not much more difficult:

You can use the same method (Test record with 1KHz test signal) with a laptop and a free downloaded spectrum analyzer. I feed the signal from my phonostage into my Macbook.

Spectrum analyzer is iSpectrum. You can put a marker at 1KHz that displays the signal in dB at 1KHz (so no notch filter needed). You can toggle iSpectrum between left and right channel so that you can easily measure the crosstalk in dB.

For example, you measure a signal at -30dB in the left channel and the crosstalk at -66dB in the right channel giving you a crosstalk separation of 36dB. You minimize the crosstalk just as for the Fozgo meter.

This method is free, only requires a RCA to mini cable to connect to your Laptop and the signal is more stable as you can choose different averaging method with iSpectrum. Another plus is that you see the frequency played from LP displayed in the spectrum analyzer so can finetune the speed of the turntable as the signal should be direct at 1KHz.

This method safes you both the need for a the Fozgo + KAB spectrum analyzer. Let me know if you have any questions.