HELP Stylus Cantilever slightly bent to the left

Tvad. Very funny. I am not named Jerko, but my cant...

Have you done your alignment based on the cantilever, ignoring the postition of the cartridge? If so, it would seem that the geometry would be correct.

I picked up a Virtuoso wood a couple of years back used with low hours. It has a slight bend to the left as well. I noticed it from day 1 but it didn't seem to have any issues playback wise and it was a great deal so I decided to live with it. I have gone through a bunch of cartridge changes since and haven't wanted to pass it along to anyone else to avoid any arguments. It sounds like it's not a terribly uncommon issue with these cartridges. Also, to answer another one of your questions it did not get worse over the couple of hundred hours I used it for, exactly the same now as it was when I received it.

Thanks for all of the information, I will try to not let it bother my OCD tendencies anymore. I am listening to Paul Simon's Graceland right now and it sounds excellent.

Jerko: I just purchased a used Clearaudio Emotion with Satisfy arm and Virtuoso cart from a member on Audiogon. I noticed the exact same thing when setting it up. I did my alignment according to the cantilever and not the cartridge body, however, I am unable to get the tonearm exactly lined up with the long parallel lines on the alignment chart. Whenever I line up the tonearm, it would be nearly impossible for me to get the stylus to line up correctly on the cross hairs. Things seem to sound ok, although I am getting distortion sometimes when playing the inside of a record. I've been experimenting with tracking force, but my pressure gauge is old and doesn't appear to be entirely accurate.