@lewm Makes the most reasonable post. No other post explains the reason behind a 17.5 mm overhang. I must be missing something but this does not match any geometry for an arm with a spindle to pivot of 222 mm.
Feel Silly Asking This Question Alignment Parameters
I feel silly asking this question, but here it goes. Most of the arms I have owned over the years have came with proprietary protractors, and certain ones like the SME are really just overhang gauges. For other ones I have bought custom generated arc protractors for the specific arm. I will probably do so again with this Origin Live arm. However in the mean time i decided to set up using their provided protractor.
When I went to install a cartridge on the table, I found I was not wild about using their protractor, so I decided to generate a Conrad H arc protractor till I made an order for an Accutrak one. What I found odd is that Lofgren A had the longest overhang at 16.8 mm and Lofgren B at 16.3mm. The Origin Live shows 17.5 mm. Is the Rega type alignment that much different than Lofgren or Stevenson? I also noticed with the OL alignment that cartridge offset in the headshell was noticeably greater.
What is also noticeable is the sonics of each alignment is different. To be honest, I like the overall sound of the OL alignment, but I also have this nagging feeling that it does not track as well.
I always felt at this stage of my audio journey I knew how to align a cartridge. I have been doing it since I was in my 20's! Now I have a large degree of uncertainty of which alignment to choose, and what the implications are if i choose wrong. This arm is a long term keeper for me, so its a matter of wanting to get this set up optimized.
Any insights you might pass along is greatly appreciated. Do have a good chuckle at my expense as it seems that I get into these moments of self doubt, and trying to find the way out of the forest of audio can be quite comical.
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I don’t think I explained it so much as I was trying to point out that if you change recommendation for overhang, you have to change other parameters like headshell offset and P2S, if you want your two null points to lie anywhere in the playing surface of an LP. That’s not a trivial exercise. Hearing it is another matter entirely. |
Right, @ Lewm is on it. All you care about is the cantilever being perfectly tangent to the groove at two points on the record as dictated by your preferred alignment. To get that tangency you have to juggle the variables of overhang, offset angle and pivot to spindle distance. Pivot to spindle distance is fixed as long as the tonearm is mounted correctly. There are tonearms like the SMEs that have an adjustable bases, but most do not. This leaves overhang and offset angle. To set these accurately whatever alignment tool you are using has to index the stylus so it can not move and it has to clearly indicate tangency in such a way that it is easy to get the cantilever perfectly coplanar by eyesight. Magnification is mandatory if you really want to be accurate. @pinwa There is a significant difference. Most people do not notice it because they are listening to tonality which does not change. What changes is the image focus. I can demonstrate this on any system that images at or near the state of the art just by twisting the cartridge in the headshell a few degrees, making before and after recordings then ABing them. @macg19 I have several Wally Tools and they are great, JR also knows what he is doing. However you need to be able to do this yourself. All you need is a SmarTractor, a WallySkater and a Wally Reference. With these tools you can be just as or more accurate than anyone. |
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