DaVinci tonearm and azymuth

I use the Feickert software for azimuth. I had an interesting experience. A cartridge I tested showed the correct azimuth when it was literally way off from vertical. I thought I had a bad cartridge. I sent it to PL for evaluation.

According to PL, this cartridge was great and wonderful. I asked about the fact that when it was perfect vertical, one channel showed -38db and the other -29. His answer was "it is what it is" and this is very common. Another words, correct azimuth can show wide discrepancy between channels regarding crosstalk.

So, in this case, I could not follow the recommendation by the software as it told you to rotate the shell 45 degrees to have similar crosstalk numbers...

Hi Jazzgene,

sorry, but the software never ever would recommend to twist by 45°.......

Cheers,

Chris

PS: You have mail

Most arms are designed to dissipate and/or transfer vibrational energy so that little is reflected back to the cartridge. The first step in that transfer is the interface between the cartridge and the headshell. Spacers would probably reduce the effectiveness of that transfer. So, once again we are talking about tradeoffs if shims or other spacers are used for azimuth correction.

Thom is correct. Optimizing azimuth for any particular cartridge requires a MUCH finer adjustment than 0.5 degree, at least 10X finer I'd say. I don't believe any set of differential shims you could easily buy would provide the necessary precision, except by dumb luck.

Despair not. As Thom suggested, rather than inserting shims beneath each cartridge screw, try running one skinny shim longitudinally down the center of the cartridge. A ~2mm wide strip of thin tape works well.

Adjusting the mounting screws "rocks" the cartridge L or R as needed, and provides an almost infinitely small range of adjustments. (If your cartridge is really off, use two layers of tape.)

Credit to Wally Malewicz. You can see a photo here. This works.

Dear Jazzgene, The primary objective in adjusting azimuth, if you are using electrical criteria and based on my reading of two long treatises on the subject (see below), is to get the best possible numbers for each channel, but not necessarily to expect that the crosstalk will be EQUAL in both channels. So, if the cartridge in question gives -38db and -29db, respectively for the two channels, these in fact are very good numbers based on the 4 or 5 cartridges I personally have measured using the Signet Cartridge Analyzer and a test LP using the 1kHz test tone. It may well be that soundstaging is very good at this setting. However, with a little tweaking of azimuth, you may be able to get a bit less crosstalk in the channel that reads -29db, and this may result in a little more crosstalk in the other channel, which will bring them closer to equal, but equal is not the goal. (In fact, crosstalk might go either way in the "good" channel if you adjust the "less good" channel to get a better number.) In the end, after you make an adjustment based on electrical measurements, you have to listen and decide for yourself what compromise is best. If you go to Vinyl Asylum, do a search on "azimuth" and look for the long posts by Brian Kearns and Victor Khomenko, respectively. Those two guys are my gurus on this subject.