Dear Zenblaster: +++++ " Depending on your table/arm cartridge combination you may, or may not, be using the ideal alignment. " +++++
IMHO there is no " ideal " alignment. The kind of choosed alignment has IMHO nothing to " do " with what cartridge or pivoted tonearm we are using it but more with where we want the lower tracking distorions/tracking error all over the recorded LP area: at the outer side, inner grooves, in the middle or an average in between.
That's where reside the different alignments more used as: Löfgren"A"/Baerwald, Löfgren"B" and Stevenson.
Here you can read about:
http://www.vinylengine.com/turntable_forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=4854&sid=c310487171a981f072fc284b0f75a14e
just make click in the first post: Dowland and that's it.
you can read that there is no ideal/perfect solution but several solutions with its own trade-offs.
If I remember MintLP use Barwald/Löfgren"A" solution/alignment.
Several of the japanese tonearms came with overhang spec calculated using Stevenson alignment that permit the lower distortions at the very inner grooves.
Which your choice?, normally I use Löfgren " B" that gives me a lower average distortions as in between the null points.
Of course all that are according with those mathematic equations to achieve the overhang/off-set angle but when in playback all that theory can't be achieved due to human errors on the cartridge/tonearm geometry set up and because the LP im´perfections.
Anyway, I think we have to make our best attempt to make the " right " set-up, don't you think?
regards and enjoy the music,
R.
