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

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. 

@knollbrent 

Sorry to hear of your pain with the death of a cartridge. For what it's worth, I came very close to destroying a higher end Koetsu shortly after I bought it.

But you got right back on the horse! Congratulations on installing the new one !! Well done - I remember how much of a stretch it was, that first time.

@hdm

So in your opinion Stevenson works well for classical music ?

Because the main quastion is why Stevenson made his alignment long time after Baerwald / Lofgren and why nearly all Japanese manufacturers of high-end tonearm using Stevenson till today. Do you have any explanation of this ?

It’s weird that audiophiles ignoring millions of records pressed on 45s singles on independent labels in the 50s - 70s (not available on any LPs). In fact the choise of music on expensive audiophile pressing LPs is awful (with some exceptions), which makes me think that audiophiles are about quality, not about music itself. As i said inner groove on 45s is different, that’s all i was trying to say.

At the same time the "normal" people just use what they got from the manufacturer like Technics.

I personally use different alignments, mostly Baerwald and Stevenson on different tonearms. I can’t hear distortion with Stevenson! Probably Technics engineers can’t here distortion too, also many other Japanese tonearm manufacturers can’t hear distortion with Stevenson alignment.

You statement is theoretical, but practically it is not necessary for the OP to change alignemnt on Technics turntables with Technics tonearm.

I would be happy to hear some files recorded with Steventon vs Baerwald / Lofgren to prove the audible distortion. I think it will be impossible!

I would like to point you on ViV Lab tonearm and its alignment method which has nothing to do with Stevenson, Baerwald, Lofgren etc. But no one complained about the distortion. Why?