Time to choose: Baerwald, Lofgren, Stevenson ?

@thom_mackris

I’ve tried Stevenson for victor ua-7045 on luxman pd444 and it sounds great (no matter LPs or 45s). First cartridge was AT-ML170 OFC mounted at AT technihard shell (at-lh13). The little twist is hardly visible, but i’ve done so to set it up in dead accuracy by Dr.Feickert.

Now i have Victor X1 with Grace HS-6 headshell on the same arm. I use Baerwald, but i sill have to twist the cartridge in headshell even more.

I think Victor UA-7045 was designed with Stevenson alignment in mind, correct me if i’m wrond.

My Reed 3p was designed with Baerwald alignment in mind and this is what i use with Feickert. With Pioneer PC-1000 mk2 the sound is fantastic. I love this cartridge even more now.

Long before i get Dr.Feickert i used protractor from Hi-Fi News Analogue Test LP (they call it Linear Offset technique.) It’s Baerwald and works fine for "12 inch tonearms, there are no errors when i use both now to doubleckeck the accuracy of the old one compared to new.

Interesting the debate over the 3 main alignment curves, how most can detect differences in tracking errors depending where on the lp one is tracking and everyone has a favourite alignment.  Mine is Stevenson as it sounds better/cleaner than the other two on the last 3rd or any lp.

I recently got a Thales Simplicty II tonearm and the maximun tracking error is 0.0006. far less than any of the 3 other alignment’s. You can hear its superiority, more than any other tonearm I have heard, you can’t tell where on the record the stylus is, the music is clear and just sounds right. So far there is no downside in my listening.

We have Kuzma, Trans-Fi , Ckearaudio and Bergmann that have traditional linear tracking - some say with drawbacks.
We now have pivoted tangential tracking with Thales and Schroder.

Tangetial tracking is what most audiophiles should be aspiring to right? You no longer have to worry about what alignment sounds the best compromise.

downunder

Tangetial tracking is what most audiophiles should be aspiring to right?

Not necessarily. Tangential trackers introduce their own set of problems including higher friction and noisy fiddly air pumps, depending on the arm, of course. Other so-called tangential trackers rely on a servo to maintain tangency, so there is periodic deviation from tangency as the servo "hunts" to correct it. Some audiophiles consider most linear trackers to be a cure worse than the disease.

Downunder, I don't think we're really "debating" the 3 curves so much as we are talking about what curve is optimal for what tonearms and why.  I recently got very interested in tonearms that have zero headshell offset angle and are designed to be mounted with "underhang", which is to say that the stylus tip does not overhang the spindle; instead it is set short of the spindle such that the tip is on the playing surface when the tonearm is pointed at the spindle.  With such tonearms, of which there are only two I think, tangency to the groove is achieved at only one point on the surface of the LP, not two, and the most extreme tracking angle error can reach or approach as much as 10 degrees, at the most inner and outer grooves.  (But it's more typically 5 to 8 degrees at worst.) BUT, on the other hand, there is zero skating force at that one null point.  

What to do with this information?  I have long owned an RS Labs RS-A1 tonearm, which is one of the two commercially available arms that use underhung mounting, that I know about.  I always wondered why it sounded so good, despite its other rather gimmicky features.  Then more recently, the Viv Rigid Float tonearm came on the market, which also uses underhang.  The Viv company likes to talk about their floating bearing, of which I am a bit skeptical, but the arm gets great reviews and is revered in Japan and Europe.  I think the reason that the Viv and the RS Labs may punch "above their weight" may be that the skating force produced by headshell offset is more noxious than the skating force that arises due to lack of tangency before and after the null point(s) for any pivoted tonearm.  And by extension this suggests that our obsession with minimizing degrees of tracking angle error via headshell offset is possibly unwise.

Does anyone own a Schroeder LT?  I rather like that one.