Wally Wally Wally

@millercarbon,

“What magic spell has Wally to get anyone thinking he's any different than the rest?”

Not sure...I don’t feel like I am under  any delusional voodoo spell to obtain such things from Wally. I just want them, period. I will leave it up to others to speculate and hypothesize as to why Wally is different from the rest. I just want to experiment and play around with new alignment tools which supports my own curiosity. If you have any experiences with Wally tools, then speak up...otherwise, ramblings about why Wally is any different than other alignment tools are useless. 

I am the proud owner of all of the Wally tools you wish to purchase. I find them very effective in tonearm setup. The WallyTractor is a very easy to use protractor. Very flexible with many tonearm combinations and lengths. The mirror surface makes it very easy to read and is very accurate if you want to achieve perfection.

The WallySkater is another great product for setting anti-skate. The tool gives you the ability to check the condition of the tonearm bearing and the accuracy of the anti-skate setting be it a dial or a weight and string. I have a Graham Phantom II Supreme tonearm and I would have never set the anti-skate weight to where the WallySkater showed me to get 8% anti-skate across the record. Yes it did make a difference and yes we all know that there is no perfect setting for anti-skate because it is ever changing across the record but the WallySkater does make a difference.

The WallyReference is an amazing product in that now you can accurately setup your cartridge to be perfectly level to the record surface before you start to make adjustment to the SRA and Azimuth based on the specific cartridge that you are using. I think that you would find this tool most useful based on your need to experiment with many different turntables, tonearms and cartridges. The other added bonus to this tool is that more support tools are being developed to expand the usage in setting SRA, Azimuth and Zenith. I think this will probably be the most valuable tool in the kit for cartridge setup.

All in all I find these tools to be some of the best out there. I have been setting up turntables for over 50 years and have seen many different tools and methods come and go. I would recommend these products.

@benjie,

Thank you for that most informative and useful post regarding the use of the Wally products.

I have been doing my own setup for about 46 years. I look forward to experimenting with these tools and comparing the outcomes to some of the other devices I have used over the years.

Fun times in the analog world for sure.

I’ve used an original WallyTracktor for years. I own a variety of protractors and Wally’s is the best of the bunch. Hands down. There's no voodoo involved - just simple geometry and clever design.

There is no mystery in setting up a turntable correctly. The weakest link in the chain is the person doing the setup. If a tonearm's geometry is correct and it is mounted spot on, all that is needed is an overhang gauge. I made my own as there is not one on the market that suites my needs. It fits over the spindle and was calibrated for my arm on a lathe. There is not aiming things at the horizontal pivot or lining up the cantilever with fine lines. Once I find my the right VTA for a cartridge the gradations on the tonearm's shaft allow me to return to the same spot instantly. 
IMHO all that other stuff is wasted money. The Wally Skater in particular would make Rube Goldberg proud. I can do exactly the same thing with a digital VTF gauge.