One internet guru who refrains from posting here these days gave a qualified recommendation for Stevenson alignment, as follows: If your LPs are "vintage", meaning original pressings from the golden era of the late 50s and 60s, he saw a merit in using Stevenson based on the idea that those LPs have grooves nearly all the way to the label. Whereas he thought Stevenson might be avoided, if you are primarily listening to later production LPs, where there is on average a wider empty space between the innermost groove and the label. I don’t even know for sure that his assumption is correct, but there you are. For myself, I tend to use whatever alignment was in the mind of the person who designed that particular tonearm. So, for vintage Japanese tonearms that I own, I use Stevenson. Otherwise, not.
The obsession with tracking angle error causing inner groove distortion is interesting to me. Many of those who have listened to the few tonearms in production that are to be mounted such that the stylus underhangs the spindle and which have zero headshell offset angle are struck by the lack of such "distortion" (read reviews of the Viv Float or the RS Labs RS-A1), despite the fact that such tonearms generate very large tracking angle errors, especially out at the outer grooves and at the innermost grooves. Makes you think maybe tracking angle error is not the cause of the perceived (and/or measured) distortion.
The obsession with tracking angle error causing inner groove distortion is interesting to me. Many of those who have listened to the few tonearms in production that are to be mounted such that the stylus underhangs the spindle and which have zero headshell offset angle are struck by the lack of such "distortion" (read reviews of the Viv Float or the RS Labs RS-A1), despite the fact that such tonearms generate very large tracking angle errors, especially out at the outer grooves and at the innermost grooves. Makes you think maybe tracking angle error is not the cause of the perceived (and/or measured) distortion.
