DaVinci tonearm and azymuth

I think the DaVinci head shell is machined dead flat and with the pivot point being contained in its jewelled double gimbal bearing, it ain't moving anywhere out of alignment.
The problem is of course, that not all cartridge bodies are as perfectly flat nor are the cantilevers for the stylus assembly perfectly aligned and rarely are the styli themselves mounted in perfectly vertical alignment to their cantilevers.
This seems in practice to put most cartridges I mount in my DaVinci 12" Grandezza Ref 'out' of perfect azimuth alignment.
I compensate (as you suggest), with the 'balance' control on the pre-amp.
Not ideal for the 'purists' out there but in the real world of sound, it's hard to find an arm to beat the DaVinci IMHO.

Never had that problem, but I would send it back for repair.

Agree with Syntax. If it's truly the arm that's out and not the cartridge, get it fixed. If it's visible to you, it was visible to the builder. IMO there's no reason to accept clearly visible inaccuracies at this price point. You can get those on a Rega.

Azimuth affects more than L/R channel balance. That isn't even the main thing it affects. As good as the DaVinci arms are, the lack of adjustable azimuth would be an annoyance for me. But Halcro already knows I'm one o' them purists! ;-)

Dear Halcro, you can not compensate azimuth offset with balance control. Azimuth offset means - always! - a misalignment of the stylus towards BOTH groove walls. This has to be fixed at the source. You can mask the sonic result to some degree (in fact only the channel imbalance.. ) with the balance control, but the problem remains and it will shorten both - the life-time of your stylus AND records.
Aside from the sonic presentation (soundstage width and depth and high frequency reproduction) which does suffer too.
To fix this issue, do get AND use very thin plastic washers (sometimes part of cartridge screws by-pack assembly) to eliminate the problem where it occurs.

Greetings to sunny Australia - its 6 degrees below zero here at my place....
D.

Psag,
With the azimuth off, is one side louder than the other, or is the soundstage shifted to one side?
rgds
alec