The best alignment for 7 inch singles?

Downunder

There are no LP alignments ideal for 7" records. Least bad would be Stevenson IEC.

If you wish to get the best from a 7" record, draw yourself a protractor with nulls at say 53mm and 73mm (which should accommodated singles with inner radius down to 50mm) and use that to align your cartridge. You will probably find it is impossible with an arm mounted for a normal LP unless you can elongate the slots on a standard headshell to reduce overhang, or have a sliding base like SME, or can rotate the armboard. The offset angle is much reduced also, so the ideal would be to adapt a headshell to enable twisting the cartridge sufficiently.

Even if you are way off with you template by a couple of millimetres it will still give you way better alignment than a standard set up, provided you align accurately, potentially under 0.1% for a standard 7".
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Tangent tracking definitely sounds the best.

Dear Downunder, interesting request - 7" singles .....
I will design an UNI-template for 7" and ( while we already at it ....) one specific for 10" records too.
Will ship both to you in mid september after my return from holiday.
Cheers,
D.

Thanks John

Interesting that no one has ever designed an alignment for 7 inch singles, or that Loef/Baer ever thought of it.. Given how popular they have been over the years and how manhy squillions have been sold.

me, I am not really a 7 inch collector.I do have a few Elvis 7 and 10 inch box sets, as well as a couple of Raadiohead albums on 10 inch.
When I was playing the Motown box set, it got me wondering as the re was great presence and prat in every performance, however you could tell the alignment was not up to the same performance level.

Daniel. Sounds like an interesting project for you to look at. Not sure if a compromise 7 / 10 inch alignment is worthwhile.
Trouble is I would need a seperate turntable just to play my 7 inch singles, or seperate hadshells for 7 and 10 inch.