Howard, there are some heated discussions about alignment on this forum, so I understand your reluctance to go there. I’ll probably get grilled for saying this (or accused of having tin ears) but to me the supposed sonic differences between the different alignments (Löfgren, Berwald, Stevenson) are strongly exaggerated. Many tonearm manufacturers used proprietary alignments different to the established ones mentioned above, so apparently I'm not the only one.
The ’experts’ have a preference for Berward and dismiss everything else as inferior. Yet Ikeda chose Stevenson for the FR64/66, so if you use the P2S specified by FR you get that alignment and the FR7’s (and SPU’s) hit all three ’bullseye points’ on the Feickert. That’s good enough for me, as I use several FR7’s and SPU’s. So I adjusted the overhang on all other cartridges in accordance to this alignment, which delivers excellent results. I did try the P2S distance favoured by these experts to adjust it to Berwald and made comparisons with the Stevenson with several cartridges, but the difference to me is negligable.
If anything I prefer Stevenson, because it theoretically has the lowest distortion in the inner grooves. I happen to like orchestral music and these composer guys usually like to go out with a bang. I like to entertain the thought that Ikeda must have been a Wagnerite.....
I assume that ’turning’ the top plate of the Brinkmann pod shouldn’t be too difficult, but there’s no guarantee you will get the correct P2S distance for the FR66. We must assume the dealer knew what he was doing and tried that. But perhaps you should give it another try, good luck!
