Not that Raul needs to be defended; he is good at it himself, but he and his compatriot have designed and manufactured a superb solid state phono stage with many great features. Therefore, he is not fairly subject to your criticism of him as a "wannabe". He pisses me off too, on the odd occasion, but let's be fair. We distortion-lovers have got to stick together.
As to Vinyl Engine and what's there: the only Stevenson protractor I have been able to find is the one available for free on VE. If you print it, make sure that the ratio of the image to the print is 1:1. I then laminated mine between two pieces of mylar, punched a hole for the spindle, and it "works a treat".
Also, in that vein, my personal experience is that I get the best sound when I align the cartridge using the geometry for which the tonearm was intended. For example, the DV505 was designed for Stevenson or something very near to it. When I align using Baerwald, etc, the sound is never as good as when I use Stevenson. The reason for this may be that in order to use something other than Stevenson, the cartridge must be askew in the headshell, twisted with respect to the long axis of the headshell. In the DV, this means that the arc of the cantilever is not in line with the arc of the vertical pivot. This may be the cause of the distortions I hear. (Yes, I can hear distortions; I am no Philistine.)
