HiFi News Test Record Azimuth

Uh oh. Least important spec in all of cartridge setup. You will now be subjected to thousands of words to the contrary. After which if you spend an inordinate amount of time and money chasing this rabbit you will be forced by cognitive dissonance to agree with them. Cognitive dissonance being the mental condition that prohibits you from realizing you screwed up. Even though we all screw up all the time, indeed it is the normal way of the world, still we refuse to think of ourselves in this way. And so once having devoted untold hours of effort trying to understand and achieve perfect azimuth, winding up right back where you started, rather than admit it was a waste of time you will tell the next one how critically important it is. And so the wheels on the bus go round and round.  

First of all adjust the azimuth visually (without test record). 

I use the  Analogue Productions - The Ultimate Analogue Test LP and measure test tone with the Fozgometer.  Testing by ears can be difficult if that's what the HiFi News Test Record requires.  Always best to have some sort of measuring device (oscilloscope is another option) for the test tone.  

If you are going to adjust azimuth "visually" (Chakster), then you really ought not to have a tonearm with azimuth adjustment capability, because in most tonearms, the default position of the headshell will already give you 90 degrees of azimuth, assuming that is the goal Chak has in mind. After decades of fiddling with azimuth and in fact being motivated to buy my triplanar tonearm for the very fact that it permits easy azimuth adjustment, I have come down on the nihilist point of view put forth by MC. Incorrect azimuth adjustment, in my opinion, can do more damage to the stylus, to the LP, and to the SQ, than can just going with 90 degrees. Yes, in some cases with some cartridges, that will be not the perfect solution, and in those cases perhaps also damage can be done. But I decided in the past few years, I can live with that. I also own a Reed tonearm with azimuth adjustment, and I own a Signet Cartridge Analyzer which permits adjusting azimuth electrically, using a Shure test LP which I own. I don’t use them any longer (the Signet Analyzer and the test LP; of course I do use the Reed tonearm with azimuth set to 90 degrees [top of headshell parallel to LP surface]).