Azimuth and the Fozgometer

...dead on azimuth is where the phase is aligned, not gain. the image snaps in based on phase being equal in each channel.

Now that you mention it Mike, this makes more sense than merely minimizing crosstalk.

Reducing stereo crosstalk certainly helps a binaural listener estimate the size and direction of a mock-single sound source coming from two speakers. But the image will only "snap into focus" when phases are precisely in synch AT THE LISTENING POSITION.

Given the effects of room interactions, which Fozgometer, Wally and oscilloscopes cannot hear, one could argue that final adjustment by listening is THE most accurate method for musical listening purposes.

For me as for you, setting azimuth is a simple, two-stage process:
1. make the stylus look vertical by eye (resting on a mirror helps)
2. fine tune until the image snaps in (this can be done listening to music if you don't enjoy test tones)

Measuring devices just over-complicate this straightforward, though vital, adjustment.

Agree the Talea's on-the-fly azimuth function makes it very easy. I've played with it for visual azimuth but didn't have time to fine tune aurally during my too-brief audition of that exceptional tonearm.

When using the Fozgometer, it's not necessary to go through the phonostage if your cartridge output is sufficient. With my Dynavector XV-1S, output is .4mv and I was able to go directly into the meter without using the phonostage.

Dear Mike, Did you set your azimuth using the Feickert stuff? I ask, because I have seen that done, and phase-matching is used as a criterion for the optimal setting. However, at the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, I would point out that music (or anything besides a pure sine wave test tone) is a complex mixture of many, many frequencies, each of which will have its own phase characteristic. It would be impossible to match them all truly between R and L channels (except possibly with state of the art digital intervention, which we don't want). So we have to settle for some average setting that makes the brain most happy. Then too, there are the unpredictable vicissitudes of one's room reflections, speaker crossover, speaker drivers, etc, to alter phase again, even the phase angles for each frequency were to emerge perfectly matched from the phono stage. But I do take the point that there may be some setting which is found to be most pleasing due to its average effect on all frequencies.

Lew,

Joel Durand, of Talea Tonearms, set up my Talea in my room. he used an Ella Fitzgerald mono Lp to make the dynamic adjustments to the azimuth. i can tell you that it took our 'eyeball' azimuth set-up to another level.

The Fozgometer measures crosstalk and channel levels through a filter. It's a good start but by no means is the optimum way to set azimuth. Feickert uses the transfer function to measure phase response, to which the ear is much more sensitive. Minimum phase error between channels is often in the ballpark of minimum crosstalk in terms of azimuth angles but rarely coincides.

For far less than $250 you can get someone to do the full Feickert alignment service.