ZYX Universe - Unipivot or Dual Gimbal arm

Vetterone--Be happy that it was ONLY three minutes,of your life!!At least you didn't have to sit through "The Dukes Of Hazard!!!

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Sirspeedy,
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It is more fortunate for Steve that he is a speed reader. In my case, it took about twenty minutes to unravel your ramble.
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Warm Regards,
Larry
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Hi Larry (Cello), Doug, all ...

Every time I'm around Frank, I learn/modify my knowledge base.

About 6 months ago, I had a Lyra Parnassus in house. This cartridge has an extremely tall cantilever. I got to thinking about this (there you go again ...Thom).

With a mirrored surface like the one on my protractor, it seemed to make sense to perform an initial azimuth setting referenced to the stylus instead of starting with a horizontal headshell. The stylus is after all, the business end of things.

Of course, I got in the habit of doing this with all of my cartridges as I got used to sighting in on the stylus.

At the RMAF, I gave my 'table a preliminary setup on 4 hours' sleep - knowing that Frank would pass by to do the final tuning the next morning. A fellow can get pretty lazy (tired?) knowing that Herr Schröder will ride into town on his white horse.

Frank took one look from a few feet away and noticed the slight tilt in the headshell. He commented that there's no way that he would trust his own eyes to perform the initial setting by referencing to the stylus.

Of course I saw this tilt, but I viewed it as an indicator that the stylus was not perpendicular to the body - as evidence of manufacturing tolerances needing to be compensated for.

What's interesting about all of this (yes ... there is a point to this story) is that I found that by using this technique, I could still dial in a sweet spot in the azimuth. It was just not *the* sweet spot. Just as with VTA/SRA, you can get false nulls at various points along the adjustment continuum.

We've seen this with VTA/SRA adjustment, where you can drop the arm post so much as to actually start to increase the high frequency content in the playback.

With respect to azimuth, you can be off by a relatively large amount (let's say, 2 degrees for sake of argument) and within this range, find a place where everything locks in (let's call this place 2.15 degrees in this example).

This "locked in" place can end up being a false null, with the true zero point (again, just an example) being a rotation of perhaps .2 degrees.

The moral of this story is that starting with a level headshell is the safest place to start your adjustments from.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibler

SirSpeedy,
Thank you for the gracious apology. I appreciate it.

I hadn't responded because I've learned that, when I've got nothing good to say it's always best not to say it.

Please consider Cello's suggestion. Patience is a hard climb, but impatience causes harder falls.

Regards,
Doug

P.S. You may be entirely correct about the setup of that Graham of course. I am only comfortable describing what I've actually done or heard, and that's what I posted.

If you or anyone can help Cello's 2.2 become as musical as a Schroeder, I expect he'd be grateful. I know his bank account would be.

Thom,
I'm following your azimuth posts with interest, though I won't have much time to experiment or post for the next few weeks. We have (non-music listening) house guests and I'm interviewing for jobs.

One correction: Wally's azimuth measurement does not equalize output levels between channels. That method would indeed be fraught with errors. Wally's method minimizes crosstalk.

I presume minimal crosstalk occurs when the coils are positioned to move symmetrically within the magnetic field. Depending on the accuracy of the cartridge's construction, this position may or may not align the contact edges of the stylus precisely with the groovewalls. If the cartridge is not perfectly built (and I assume that none is truly perfect) then "perfect" azimuth adjustment is in fact unattainable.

FWIW, adjustments of < 1 degree do indeed produce measurable changes in crosstalk. I too have noticed what you call "null" zones, where adjustments have little effect or even reverse effects.

The main thing we hear when azimuth is just right is the tightest L/R imaging available from that particular cartridge, a reduction in image "bloat".

Best regards,
Doug