Feickert analogue protractor....Owners impressions

Thom

thanks for trying to explain this in more simple terms with the pro's and con's. due to the fact I live in Australia, I'll leave it up to some of the other folks in the US to take advantage of your kind offer.
just a few comments/questions

- Graham - you set the pivot to spindle by using the actual arm and attaching it to the spindle adaptor - should be then perfect. with the magneglide on the phantom - no unipivot wobble.

- Feickert - Exactly what does this tool do, except to align pivot to spindle distance very well. Or can you adjust the overhang like Joe said above.

- looks like arc protractors like Wally / Ken / Mint are the best but most difficult to get right??

Okay, I've procrastinated on this long enough. Thom's post finally swayed me to purchase the MintLp arc protractor. I've used a Wally Tractor before on a different arm and while I liked it the Feickert was quite attractive to me. I'll buy some new LPs with the savings.

As long as we're talking about tonearm alignment in general, I'd like to bring up the experience of my oldest audio friend (both in years of friendship and age). I went to his house to help him set up his new Dynavector Karat 17D3 in his Well Tempered Reference tonearm, using my Turntable Basics protractor, which I think falls into the category of an "arc-style" protractor. The experience was very stressful, because the platter of the WT tt will not stay stable without the drive belt to hold it up, because the WT tonearm is fixed in position by a very difficult to access nut underneath the table, and one must loosen that nut to adjust stylus overhang, because the WT tonearm also has only two holes in the headshell for cartridge mouting with no provision for fore and aft movement of the cartridge, and finally because the DV Karat seems to have an unusually short stylus-to-mounting hole distance. Every time I thought I had the DV stylus tip sitting in the right place, the act of tightening the nut under the table would inevitably twist the vertical shaft at the pivot end and throw out the alignment. We achieved some semblance of success after about 2 hours, but the combo sounded horrible, IMO, because I think the alignment was not good. He subsequently bought a Feikert; I don't know how that works, but he just told me that the alignment on the WT table and tonearm cannot be done with the Feikert, either. I think his frustration is due to the fundamental design of the WT and perhaps the unusually short cantilever on the DV Karat, but it points up the problems that can arise.

Downunder,

I'm not sure if you mean "difficult to get right" to refer to making or using an arc-style protractor. I doubt you are interested in making one, so I'll assume you are talking about using the protractor.

I don't find an arc-style protractor any more difficult to use than my 2-point style protractor. In fact, I find the arc style easier to use and much easier, for me anyway, to get alignment right.

Using any protractor is an iterative process if done correctly. That is, once you get your second point adjustment you really should go back and double check the alignment on the first point. This is also true of the arc-style, with one big exception. With the arc-style nothing is moved except the arm and cartridge. There is no re-aligning of the protractor for the first point. Unless one can do this re-alignment of the protractor with the exact same precision every time, this change in position of the protractor introduces error.

With the arc-style, you find the correct position for the protractor by locating the position in which the stylus lands exactly on the arc at a point near the spindle and a point near, preferably beyond, the outside edge of the platter. BTW, this can't be done unless the P2S distance is right for the specific arc. Once you have this the protractor is fixed in position. Now when you start the process of aligning the cantilever you are only concerned with that alignment and with keeping the stylus on the line. This alone makes the arc-style much easier for me to use.

Now as for how much time and effort one wants to put into the iterations, that is where the difficulty comes in. But this is true for any method or tool one wishes to use to do alignment. How close is close enough becomes a personal choice. My experiences lately with fine tuning cartridge alignment has shown me there is a huge reward for increasing the accuracy. This is no revelation to LP playback, we all know this. Some of us have found a tool that works even better for us to get cartridge alignment even more precise. Others may have a different tool that does the same for them. As always, YMMV.

Yea Dan, I was talking about using the protractor and paraphrasing Thom.

I have used a wally for some time with my JMW. When I upgraded from 12.5 to 12.6 - worked fine. from 12.6 to 12.7 the P2S distance changed - can't use the wally anymore.

Me I might be joining some of the folks here and getting a Mint. The Friekert for me seems to offer nothing.

cheers