Will fine tune adjustments with protractor help with "brightness?"

@lewm  Yes, I will do that.

@avanti1960  Thanks for clarifying.

@knollbrent  The key is taking your time, no rushing, good lighting and a microscope. 

@avanti1960 

On the Technics, if the new GR is using the same arm geometry as the old 1200, traditional Lofgren alignment would result in a much greater overhang, approximately 3.3 mm more, and Baerwald would result in about 2.8 mm more. In both cases the cartridge would have to be angled noticeably toward the spindle to align properly.

Stevenson alignment on the Technics with a 215 mm mounting distance would result in less than 1 mm more overhang as compared to the Technics alignment and the cartridge should sit almost square in the headshell. 

Dear @avanti1960 @ericsch @knollbrent : As other japanese tonearm manufacturers almost always exist some kind of trouble to know in precise way wich kind of alignment used because normally are out of standards.

The 1200 is a clear example where if we decide to make calculations below IEC standards the alignment numbers does not even what Technics states. Technics does not gave the precise/accurate/measured P"S distance that for the alignment calculations is a fixed parameter that we can’t change. I’m not an owner of a 1200 so I can’t measure it.

Now, if we change the calculations to the JIS standard then we have those 15mm ( 14.99 ) on overhang and 22.1° as offset angle. This is the nearest numbers using the diferent standard parameters. Obviously that any one can change those standard numbers to make his own calculations.

Now, Stevenson with JIS standard ( or IEC/DIN. ) has lower tracking distortions ONLY in the last 5mm inner grooves and higher tracking distortions in the other 90mm of recorded grooves ! !


Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

Excellent info everyone. Some of this is actually beginning to sink in!

What Raul says about Stevenson having greater tracking distortion than Lofgren or Baerwald across the vast majority of the record is absolutely true.

However, the statement that Stevenson has lower inner groove distortion is a huge generalization in light of the fact that the location of the "inner grooves" varies vastly from record to record.

The traditional inner null points (zero distortion) of Stevenson, Baerwald and Lofgren are approximately 60 mm, 66 mm and 70 mm respectively. So Stevenson will in fact have grossly higher inner groove distortion on a record which has inner grooves ending at 65 mm than Baerwald and approximately the same as Lofgren.

On the other hand, if you're playing a lot of audiophile records which have the inner grooves ending around the 70 mm mark (70 mm from the centre of the spindle, Lofgren is going to give you considerably better inner groove distortion numbers than either Stevenson or Baerwald.

It is really only in the 58-60 mm area that Stevenson excels at reduction of IGD as compared to Baerwald and Lofgren and many vinyl users (classical music lovers with lots of long sides possibly excluded) have very few records in their collection with playable inner grooves in that area.

If you took 60-70 mm as an average inner groove area in your collection, which is highly possible and very likely, Baerwald would in fact provide an average of 25% less IGD in that area than Stevenson. Lofgren would have the worst performance in that area, the bulk of it being in the 60-63 mm area though, while outperforming Stevenson & Baerwald on average across the whole record.

The elephant in the room for Stevenson is where the actual inner grooves are on each individual record, and it is a pretty big elephant.

The Technics alignment makes even less sense than Stevenson, placing the inner null around 59 mm.