Wally Wally Wally


Anyone else get the latest Wally tools? Likes or dislikes? Not asking for opinion on purchase of said items, only your experiences; both, good and bad.


I just went wild Wally Tool crazy and ordered everything. Long story short, I will be accumulating at least two more turntables in the next 6 months, and wanted to have another set of eyes to spot check my current methods of installing and measuring cartridges performance; ears, SME protractor, test records, Fozgometer, Schon Schablonne (German protractor), and glass protractor by Avid. 
It’s a means to an end as I want quick, verifiable, and repeatable measurements due to the amount of tonearm and cartridges swapping that will be occurring. It’s a means to an end which supports my listening studio.


I have, like many others, used my ears and standard measurement tools over many years and it’s pretty cut and dry. I figured what the heck, why not indulge in tools that support the hobby, and can be used to help others while also giving me some peace of mind.

audioquest4life
@lewm

I read your post above and I disagree with you, most people here do not agree with my sentiments. Many people here think investing in tools and equipment for setup is a waste of money. Downloading a pdf of a protractor and print if out on a piece of paper is just as good as a precision made protractor. An old scale you used to weigh you weed with works just fine for setting tracking force. The list goes on and on. I find it hard to believe that people will spend thousands of dollars on their analog equipment but when it comes to setup tools, become cheap and spend as little as possible, seeing very little value in them.

The two most important setting for your cartridge are SRA and Azimuth. Many people do not want to take the time or invest in the tools to measure these setting. The sad thing is a lot of people think that they can do this by ear or with a test track. Not going to happen. Lets use the example of rake angle. It is not very common to get a cartridge from the factory set at 92 degrees, which is the cutting head angle setting for manufacturing lacquers. That number has been around since the 1960’s. Most manufactures have a 2 degree window that they see as acceptable. So if your cartridge has a native SRA setting from the factory at 90 degrees, you would have to raise the back of the tonearm up 8 mm to achieve 92 degrees. Most agree that 4 mm equals 1 degree of change to the SRA. I don’t know if most tonearms have that much adjustment in them. My point is that if you have no way of checking these settings your never going to achieve high quality sound from your setup.

Over the many years of doing this I have found out two thing. Some people do not know what good sound is and that "they don’t know what they don’t know".
@benjie I agree with you, I was part of the first type of people. But then I realised how good your TT can get after a real alligment. I was so affraid to do the cartridge set up myself that after watching JR videos, spoke to him and after I bought the Wally Tractor and the Wally Skater I've called him many times and he has guided me through with patience. I am now super happy with my tools.
Benjie, You wrote, "I read your post above and I disagree with you, most people here do not agree with my sentiments."
I quoted you in order to avoid the tricky double negative in your sentence.  For the record, I certainly do agree with the merit in using good tools to do alignment and any other job that requires precision.  What I was trying to say is that setting SRA is a can of worms for anyone but the most experienced persons, not only for lack of proper equipment to visualize and measure SRA but also because, based on what I have read elsewhere on various vinyl oriented websites, and even with optimal microscopy tools, it is very difficult to know what you are actually measuring.  This is because modern styli have complex shapes, and one wants to know the angle of the actual contact patch.  I don't think that I, for one, can know that with confidence.  This means only that I rely on setting VTA and hope for the best.  If you can consistently make an accurate measurent of SRA, my hat is off to you.  As to Azimuth, there are good debates for how to do that as well, electrically or physically.  I have settled on my own opinion of what is the best way to do it. I own very good protractors and VTF scales and etc, and I do use them all. None of my alignment gear happens to come from Wally; that doesn't mean it isn't good stuff.