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

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.

@hdm 
+10 WOW! An informational analysis. What a breath of fresh air.

Dear @hdm :  You are rigth. The incredible issue is that several audiophiles work with Stevenson A alignment when makes no sense to use it for any one.

Btw and only to add that Baerwald is who took the credit for the alignment that has his name when in reality was Löfgren who has two alignment solutions: Löfgren A and B where A solution is the one that time latter than Löfgren achieved to that same A solution. 
So the true " property "/autor  was Löfgren with those A and B solutions.


R.

@hdm

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.

I am not an advocate of Stevenson, but i doubt in your knowlende about record formats, i have randomly measured inner grooves on various vintage 45s (7’inch records) and the music goes up to 50mm (from the spinde) on many of them.

Japanese companies supplied radiostations with their equipment (tonearms, turntables, cartridges) back in the 60s, 70s. Denon, Saec, Technics etc ... The radio format is NOT an LP, but the singles, supplied as a promo prior to the pressing of LP, to the radio discjockeys to promote the songs. One track per side only.

This format of music media is highly collectible and millions of people have those records (45 rpm singles) as in most cases it is the ONLY way to buy a song which was never ever issued on LP. I am talking about original 45 rpm 7 inch singles from the 50s, 60s, 70s ... The groove starts at about 82mm and the song goes up to 50mm (from spinde to the inner most groove). Go figure.

This is not like on your typical LP or on that audiophile pressing that are made for small majority of people. The normal 45s were made for the masses, there are more 45s that LPs in this world for sure.

P.S. Stevenson alignment was made officially for classical music where the most complex passages tends to be in the end of the record at the inner most groove.

People who can't think of anything but a distortion should buy Linear Tracking tonearms ONLY. 

@chakster

1) I am aware of Stevenson's link with classical music and in fact alluded to it in my post

2) "I doubt in your knowledge of record formats." Does that comment make you feel better-more superior?

3) I could be wrong but I doubt there is anything but a very small minority of posters here that spend a great deal of time playing 7" 45's relative to 12" records in their collection. If there are, accept my apologies;  my comments were not directed toward them.

4) For those playing large numbers of highly collectible 7" 45's with playable grooves between 50-82 mm and with a serious commitment to them and wanting to hear them at their best, Stevenson, while it may be preferable to Baerwald and Lofgren, would actually make little sense in that scenario.

What would make sense for those collectors would be to create a custom alignment with nulls somewhere in the 51-52 mm and 75-77 mm area. 

5) For those of us with pivoted arms it makes perfect sense to work at minimizing distortions when it is a relatively simple and basic procedure based on the geometry and, for most, a lot less complicated than moving to a linear tracking arm.