DaVinci tonearm and azymuth

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

Alectiong,

Since Psag hasn't adjusted his azimuth he may not be able to identify what effects it has.

Azimuth inaccuracy has all the effects Dertonarm described and it also has a major influence on L-to-R image focus. I used to take electronic crosstalk measurements to adjust azimuth. With practice, I've learned to adjust just as accurately by listening. Image focus (tight vs. fat) changes more than the soundstage shifts, at least IME.

Optimal adjustment needs to be much finer than is possible with headshell shims, but if that's all your arm allows AND it's visibly off, they're certainly better than nothing.

Hi Pasg,
having read all the previous inputs I suspect the mounting base is not level with the platter or the pivot post not 90 deg. relative to the plater level. This would cause an azimuth off-set from the arm post relative to the platter...
If this (for what ever reason) is the case, it can be checked with a small level on top of the head-shell. It could possibly corrected --- at the source of the trouble.

Note: IF the arm post is correct (90 deg. with the platter) the azimuth deviation ought to be of the same off-set at the start, middle and end of the record. ALSO, this measurement is ONLY correct if the head-shell is very close or at the level position where the stylus contacts the record!

In the case of my SME V arm with SME 10 tt, I had to shim the arm mounting by ~ 0.2 mm to correct for such a deviation.
In this case it is an issue with the arm's pivot-post somehow not aligning a proper 90 deg. to the mounting base, (which in my case is level relative to the platter)
Yet, playing with out the shim, I can not detect any shift in imaging or one side louder then the other, it is not enough of a deviation (I think). However, when corrected there is less miss-tracking, OR groove distortion with very critical tracks :-)
Axel