Dear all, I dearly hope moderators allow me this lengthly post to clarify a few topics.
Some spare moments so I would like to take the chance set some things straight.
The UNI-Protractor is the off-spring of my own "need and want" to have an instrument at hand which suits each and every tonearm I have encountered (many ....) and ever will come across in the best possible way.
I focused on true universality, exact positioning and repeatable precision in every alignment.
I agree with everyone that a printed paper template might be enough.
It is just not for me.
We are playing with top $ cartridges and tonearms (not to mention phono stages and the rest of the pack ...) and I for one want the best possible from these 2 front-line devices of the analog chain.
In tonearm alignment we are facing one of the very few true geometric and mechanic "fields" in audio.
Here nothing is about taste or like/dislike.
Here everything is about putting the stylus and it's cantilever in a position where the stylus' trip through the groove will produce the least errors and thus the best possible result.
For those in doubt that real precise alignment is king, I recommend to visualize the dimensions of the tonearm, stylus and groove.
If you amplify all dimensions of the tonearms length and the polished contact area of your stylus by 1000x, your average tonearm is anywhere between 250 meter and 300 meter long.
Your stylus contact area is still only about 1.5 cm x 5 cm .......... hanging at the top of a tonearm longer than 2 football fields .....
The 0.5 mm error you may have had in your alignment is now half a meter off the line.
I think the message is clear.
Precision is king - nowhere in the audio chain more important than here: at the very start.
What you loose here to less than best possible alignment can never anywhere in the cain be recovered.
It is about positioning the polished area of your stylus in the most perfect way in relation to the groove's walls - and that for it's whole journey and on every record.
This is setting the horizontal plane once and for all - and for all the records you are playing. VTA is setting the vertical plane and that is a question of groove-compliance.
But the alignment of the zero (points) is the raw basic on which everything else builds.
Now about my "geometry" and a few misunderstandings floating around:
To me Baerwald, Löfgren and Stevenson - DIN or IEC - are certainly not the only suitable alignment curves.
That there is no generalization like Baerwald/Löfgren is always best suitable for all tonearms
This first came to my attention about 25 years back when I struggled to get the best possible sound from my Fidelity Research FR-64s. The manufacturers specs were sub-optimal and so were all alignments following any of the above mentioned big 3.
And all the templates I had - and I had all ever put to the market - suffered to optimize the FR-64s (most if not any were following Baerwald IEC of course) due to its special geometry.
There are a good many tonearms out there which do produce better results with an alignment not following Baerwald or Löfgren - as their geometrical design calls for different calculation to bring out their very best.
Another great example is the SAEC 506/30, which geometry indeed is optimized by its designers to play 10 records and singles !!
So - there is not secret geometry here, but I have indeed calculated some individual templates with a geometry different from their manufacturers specifications ( which Ive found to be not correct or sub-optimal) and different from Baerwald, Löfgren or Stevenson calculations.
Not all, - but a good few.
This includes templates for the Talea 2 and the Reed 3Q.
One should always keep in mind, that every arc calculation is always a compromise. It is always a question of where to put the focus of attention.
IMHO it is quite important to focus the attention on the last 1/3rd of the groove.
There is good evident reason for this: most climax in symphonic music is towards the last minutes of a movement and thus most likely situated towards the inner label. Very vulnerable to distortion and miss-tracking - I guess many here have had their experiences and know what I am talking about.
Furthermore the radius of groove curve gets smaller towards the inner label - as such the environmental conditions for the stylus alignment towards the groove wall gets tougher by nature.
In other words: low distortion figures in the first 1/3 of a record is less important than in the last 1/3.
Most of my personal calculations do result in falling in between Baerwald and Löfgren B.
Each templates for the UNI-Protractor do come with a leaflet describing the individual calculation and its pro and cons for the user and gives clear recommendations what calculation to use what what tonearms and which purpose (old jazz-LPs, symphonic recordings and pressings from the 1950ies to 1970ies, records cut in what period et al).
The UNI-Protractor is an engineers approach and device to ensure for the user - with ease and easily repeatable precision - an optimized alignment. Easy, swift but reliable and universal by all means.
There will soon come 2 very nice options to further widen the possibilities and options of the UNI-Protractor which will go far beyond anything we have ever had before.
Stay tuned.
And I look forward to the first reports by fellow Audiogoners about the UNI-Protractor.
I for one will continue to supervise the production and the quality control of the UNI-Pro.
My own tonearm design is almost finished and will go into production in June 2011.
Cheers,
D.
