Time to choose: Baerwald, Lofgren, Stevenson ?


I’ve managed Dr.Feickert Analog Protractor for a decent price (build quality is superb, such a great tool).

Time to play with Baerwald, Lofgren, Stevenson alignments on my Luxman PD444.
Need advice from experienced used of the following arms:
Lustre GST 801
Victor UA-7045
Luxman TA-1
Reed 3P "12
Schick "12

Baerwald, Lofgren, Stevenson ? What do you like the most for these arms?
Manufacturers recommend Baerwald mostly. 

Dedicated "7 inch vinyl playback deserve Stevenson alternative, maybe?
Since it's a smaller format than normal "12 or "10 inch vinyl, it's like playin the last track's according to position of grooves on '7 inch (45 rpm) singles. RCA invented this format, i wonder which alignment did they used for radio broadcast studios.   

Thanks

chakster
Oh no, that's not at all necessarily the case. As others have pointed out, there's often a slight misalignment of the cantilever within the cartridge itself. Proper cartridge alignment aligns the cantilever to the record, and not the cartridge to the headshell. 

As, lewm already indicated, that doesn't change the conclusion at all. If you align by the cantilever, then the cantilever (rather than the body) will be aligned straight in the headshell and will remain so in any arm if you use the alignment that the tonearm was designed for.


Dear @sampsa55 :  """   I align the cartridges based on the alignment the tonearm was designed for. Since most of my tonearms use removable head shells and were designed for a 52mm distance from the head shell connection to the stylus... """

that's true only if those tonearms has the same effective length.

Remember that the Löfgren calculations ( he was the first to do it and all the other kind of alignments starts by his equations. ) begin with the input know parameters:
tonearm effective length, inner most groove radius and outer most groove radius. This is the foundation of the alignments that must be untouched for the calculations.

From those 3 input parameters we calculate: offset angle, overhang, both null points and distance from the center of tonearm pivot to the center of TT spindle. If we move the overhang we need to move the tonearm mount distance in order to mantain distortions at minimum for the choosed alignment calculations.

Understanding all those we can have a " personal " alignments changing the effective length or any or both radius.

As I posted here in the tonearm/cartridge set up the name of the game with the choosed alignment is: accuracy on that set up.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.
Dear @sampsa55 : """ I align the cartridges based on the alignment the tonearm was designed for. Since most of my tonearms use removable head shells and were designed for a 52mm distance from the head shell connection to the stylus... """

that’s true only if those tonearms has the same effective length.

Ah, no. The effective length of the tonearm has nothing to do with this. You can have tonearms of very different length that are still designed to have the same 52mm distance from stylus to tonearm connection or tonearms with the exact same length that are designed for a different distance (e.g., 50mm) from stylus to tonearm connection.

Again, think about the SPU: it can be used in short and long tonearms. 

Dear @sampsa55 : I think that you have a misunderstood on the input data for the whole calculations through diferent tonearm/cartridge alignments.  

Around tonearm effective length are made alignment calculations along inner most groove  and outer most groove radius. This is a fact that no one can change that comes from the original Löfgren papers.

Please read these links:

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/tonearm-recommendation/post?postid=1307611#1307611

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/tonearm-recommendation/post?postid=1306735#1306735

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/tonearm-recommendation/post?postid=1305440#1305440

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/tonearm-recommendation/post?postid=1305917#1305917

We can manipulate original equations for new calculations. Exist several internet calculator where we can choose diferent kind of alignmwents preserving a fixed overhang or fixed >P2S or fixed offset angle. One of them is at VE but this is not what I'm talking about.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.
Raul, I think you're missing my point and talking about something different. I’m not talking about Baerwald, Loefgren, or Stevenson, but whatever the alignment was that the tonearm in question was designed for and the resulting position of the stylus in the headshell.