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Cartridge Alignment Newbie Question

Sorry to bother you guys again. When I mount my cartridge (Goldring) using Rega's alignment tool, the cartridge seems to be aligned although when looking at the cartridge mounting screws on the RB300 headshell they are not perfectly side by side. Is this a normanl occurance? or if the screws are not perfectly side by side is this an indication that my cartridge may not be aligned properly, or crooked?

Thanks to all for helping me set-up,
Marcus(again)
mrcs99e0
plato
1,543 posts
 
I would trust the alignment gauge -- mine is the same way, and I've checked it with three different gauges. The gauges all say it's right (though the screws in the slots are uneven) and that's good enough for me. Plus, the cartridge sounds excellent so who am I to argue with good results?

That is a good question though and if anyone knows exactly why this occurs, I'm all ears...
plato
1,543 posts
 
Thinking about this a little further, it seems to me that designers locate the armboard and arm mounting hole in a certain spot. They don't necessarily know what arm will be mounted on the table, so if you use an arm with a different pivot to stylus dimension than the one they designed it for, then you will have a case where the cartridge alignment is not square with the headshell.

Make sense?
hackmaster
102 posts
 
It's hard for me to say from what you are describing if the cartridge is properly aligned or not. However I will say that the alignment gauge that comes with the Rega tables is not terribly good - I never use them when aligning cartridges for customers. The best one I've found is the Clearaudio alignment jig, but it's fairly expensive. Nevertheless it really does the trick on virtually all tables and it's quick and easy to use.
nrchy's avatar
nrchy
2,124 posts
 
I have a Rega RB 900 and I always use the Mobile Fidelity Geodisc. I think it is much more accurate than most others. There are some "hi end" alignment tools you can buy for BIG money but I think the Geodisc generally gets thing where they should be located.
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