Uni-Protractor Set tonearm alignment

Here is my review of the Uni-Pro. Received it in great shape. Well packed and bomb proof. I liked how you packed the unit. I did notice a few freebies such as the ruler and the light?

Upon setup, I noticed a few things that could be improved.

1. the center pin is a little short for my liking as my Dynavector has a lower pivot piont. I think a longer pin would work much better and would not hurt the design.

2. like Jazzgene said, The lines on the centering device is very difficult to see on lighter/shiny tonearms especially the FR66s and my DV507. I believe should the lines be anothter colour instead of white would be much easier to see.

3. Numeric markings on the acrylic arm like the Feikert would be a bonus.

Now to the strong points.

This thing is built like all German made stuff. Serious, tough and the word precision written all over it. Looking into the magfier proved an easy task on this system as it has a large enough lens.

Upon checking my setup, I noticed my alignment off by a little. Correcting it via the Uni proved easy enough.

Now to the sound. The setup (DV507) after using the Uni was more solid and focussed. It also proved itself as after the adjustment as there was slightly less surface noise (quieter) and less grain in the music.

So far this is the first tonearm I have setup with the Uni. Will do my other tonearm when I get time this weekend.

Now to the milloin dollar question.....Is it worth $800? I will leave it up to you. If you are like me who regularly sets up turntables, It is definitely worth it's asking price. Also if you own a resonably priced analog rig and plan to go deeper into analog, You owe it to yourself to get one of this UNI's and setup your own turntable instead of getting someone to do it for you.

My Uni-Protractor had just arrived. Although I am not yet in position to put to use, may I offer a quick initial impression. As a watchmaker for many years I developed an utmost appreciation of finely crafted precision tooling. Overall, I am very impressed. The price outlay is very small compared to my, or many others, TT setups. I feel very good costumer service here, and that this is just a beginning for Dertonarm.

Nice reviews Jazz, Halcro & Genesis. I received mine on Thursday. I said I would be honest and open, so here it is.

Halcro, I especially liked your photo's and you gave me the rather obvious position in hindsight to place the led light on the inside of the tonearm.

First up, the packing, quality and german engineering excellence of the package is there for anyone to see. First class. You actually feel that you are purchasing something of class.

Issues for me first.

Giving out a bendy small ruler for P2S measurement is a bit of a joke IMO, regardless of .5mm accuracy. You will be more than .5mm out on the P2S measurement given the inadequacy of the ruler.
Given the entry price, a better tool should have been provided in the package like with the cheaper direct competitor, the Fiekert. It has an excellent P2S measurement device as part of the alignment tool.
This may be my oversight, however when looking initially at the photo's and given that the alignment devices in competition are Fiekert I thought the positioning arm was also the P2S measure.

Given P2S is measure is such a critical part of any alignment tool, that one was not provided is poor IMO.

back to the review

the instructions in the manual are very detailed and straight forward - excellent

This device will take you longer than the Mint or Feikert, however you IMO get much better precision than the Feikert.
The Feikert is poor with its generally fat lines painted onto steel compared to the Uni-tractor.
The Mint has always been a poor cousin to the Wally tractor and the uni tractor with its lazer etching is a lot better than the Mint's lines under the mirror approach.

It was easier to align the stylus point onto the exact lazer dot on the uni template compared to either Mint or Feikert. That is the beauty about the lazer etching.
I, like the others struggled a little bit with the two etched lines on either side of the middle line, in how they curve slightly due to the magnification. like anything, after a bit of practice it got easier.

Once that was done, you were complete. two points vs one point. Frankly, with the Mint. If you aligned the initial null point perfectly, I always found the 2nd one lined up as well. So the Uni-tractor having only one meassure point is no big deal, you just need to concentrate on getting it correct up front.

The Azimuth tool was cook and very good to use next to the tonearm to see how level the tonearm was.

- non standard uni-templates.

I guess a lot of people are interested in the specific aligment templates. to quote Daniel

the EA-3 template is based on the EA-3's geometry, but a bit
"optimized" by myself - so kind of "my brew".
- same for Graham and Ortofon - very slight corrections, but better
distortion figures than manufacturer's specs.

I used the Exclusive EA-3/10 alignment template to compare with the Stevenson alignment from Mint. Yes, I know, not really a fair comparison. The Stevenson vs Stevenson will come later.

I buy mostly modern LP's but many have music right to the inside label. I much prefer Stevenson/VPI type alignment than L or B. Mainly due to the fact that the inner 3rd of any LP(which is getting smaller and smaller with each revolution)to my ears has the most obvious distortion compared to the rest of the LP. Overall the slight increase in brightness on the 1st 3rd is more than compensated with the better sound of the last 3rd with Stevenson. Right, my listening bias are out of the way.

The EA-3 alignment was more relaxed in the first 3rd vs Stevenson and as good ads B or L from memory. It was better sounding than either B or L in the last 3rd to my ears. Not quite as good as Stevenson, but overall something I can live with. I'll go back to Stevenson in a couple of weeks.

My Mint tractors will be soon for sale on audiogon. The Feikert I am afraid cannot be sold ATM as detailed above. I believe the adequate P2S tool should be part of the Uni-Tractor price given its importance for correct alignment, not offered as it seems to be next week as an additional extra. I would be interested if anyone else shares my view on this or I am out of line.

Overrall a 1st class product is the Uni-tractor and oozes quality.

I think Daniel added the ruler as a "estimate" tool and not for a precise measurement. If you look at the positioning arm, it does not go to the spindle so it can't give P2S measurement without a complete re-design.

I believe if you are very careful, you can get a very precise measurement of P2S with the ruler supplied, though. Use some CD cases to lift the ruler so it is completely parallel to the platter. Look at the ruler directly from above as well.

Downunder, I fell into the same trap as you, and you are completely right: The Feickert provides a comfortable distance measurement.

What I did: I fixed Dertonarms scale tool on the Dennessen, putting the black middle round over the spindle as a horizontal bases, and put the Azimuth transparent block on top running it against the scale (see last image on my page).

I am now absolutely precise on the distance and in the next step I do use the UNI-Protractor.

Of course you are right it would be fine to have it within one tool. maybe Dertonarm will consider a UNI-Protractor v2 combininig these capabilities.

Best & Fun Only - Thuchan