Setting up a tonearm...Audio Magazine Jan 1980 says most are done wrong

Blue Shadow

Waiting for Vintage Gear from this century
There is an interesting article in the January 1980 Audio Magazine available for download here: http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Audio-Magazine.htm that discusses setting up a pivoted tonearm according to Baerwald and Bauer with some math and a list of many of the available tonearms on the market back then. Not the ones that come with a table, generally. It is interesting that of all these tonearms only three, unnamed arms were considered accurately set up according to manufacturer's instructions.

Most know that the arc that a pivoted arm travels across a record does not position the stylus perpendicular to the groove (the way the record was cut) except at two locations or less on the grooved surface. The Baerwald alignment sets these two locations to minimize total error across the record, the Stevenson alignment minimizes error at the inside edge of the grooves and there are others. You can look at the charts of some of these over on vinyl engine. https://www.vinylengine.com/clearaudio-alignment-tool.shtml using just one of their many tools to get cartridge alignment correct for tonearms and turntables.

Making the choice as to which alignment to use was up to the manufacturer of the arm and turntable for those supplied with an arm. For pivoted tonearms, it appears from the Audio Magazine article the alignment methods provided by for the gear are not the best answer.

I'm not going to say which alignment is best just differences. With zero error at the record end some may prefer the Stevenson alignment. I have a Baerwald alignment card stock tool that came with a tonearm and I use that. This alignment provides the lowest weighted error overall. OK whatever that means. I guess a studying read of the article can spell this out but with all the differences in the tonearms and how they are set up, it makes it obvious that most should venture away from the manufacturer's specified alignment and try one of the other alignment methods.

With all the alignment gauges that have been lost over the years and folks going to Vinylengine to get alignment information, maybe turntables are sounding better today than when set up with the gauges.

I'm looking forward to checking the tts I have with integrated tonearms but don't seem to have to worry about the separate tonearms as I use the Magnepan method on those arms and they are one of the three that have equal weighted errors at the end, middle and beginning of the record, a criteria for setting up the cartridge correctly according to Audio Magazine. Guess I got lucky with that arm or I was believing the propaganda on the sales brochure before buying one.
 
I honestly dont get your point. Each of the clasic alignment methods has its pros and cons. The each have a set of priorities they are optimizing for. Assuming the manufacturers were somewhere in the range they might be off of any of the classic points but still be considered 'right' for the priorities they had in mind.
 
I honestly dont get your point.

Point is that not many tonearms and probably way fewer integrated arms on tables are set up correctly and going through the motions would make a third of the tables on AK sound better. No math needed.

Of course, another number of tables here would benefit from a new stylus. Just mentioning it because the alignment is something totally under the control of the user. Grab an alignment gauge from VE and print it correctly and verify your table. Moving the stylus only 1 mm can make a big difference. But you can do whatever you want, I'm not listening to your system, cept for the local guys' rigs.

It makes me want to check my tables that came with arms using a protractor, not the provided alignment gauge, to find out how far off or what type alignment the table uses in stock form.
 
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...not many tonearms and probably way fewer integrated arms on tables are set up correctly...
The only "correct" alignment would be to keep the stylus parallel to the groove all across the record, ie with a linear tracking arm. All pivoting arms work on "best that's possible" alignment, and which is best is a matter of priorities and a subject of some debate - therefore there is no "correct" alignment.
 
Well then we can just ignore the first post and move on with living with the errors that the manufacturer's have built into their alignment procedures and never investigate whether there is something better out there.

The second paragraph does indicate that the pivoted tonearm does not place the cartridge in the same position as the cutting stylus under most conditions on the record. This alluded to the possible better alignment of the linear tracking systems out there. If they were so good why are they not the norm? Might have something to do with the need to motorize the arm movement across the record.

Whatever folks want to do with the supplied information is up to them. A move to a linear tracking arm, set up for least inner groove error, optimize for the first song on the album or whatever. Lots of options. Article points to the way to get lowest error across the record, not favoring any particular section of the grooves.
 
I am a big fan of linears for that reason. Closest path to the way the vinyl was cut. Doesn't mean that's the only table in my collection of tables and frankly I am hard pressed to say there is a substantial audio difference between my better linears vs the standard arm. I do know in theory I should get better reproduction with the linear though. That assumes you ignore other factors of how the arm in moved along the grooves.
 
This paper should be required reading for anybody wasting a brain cell on the topic- https://www.vinylengine.com/turntable_forum/viewtopic.php?t=4854
Then, download the John Elison spreadsheet here (halfway down page)- http://www.enjoythemusic.com/freestuff.htm
Now you can experiment with various standard and non-standard alignments and see the tracking error. Download an arc template generator and try things. Just be careful, as cartridge alignment is always risky business for expensive styli.
 
I find it interesting that in this internet age, I am able to get far more information on aligning my arm/cartridge than I had available in the 1970's, when my current turntables were built.

Except for the few really diehard 'audiophiles', back then all we knew was - use the manufacturer's alignment gauge and play. Ignorance was bliss?
 
Agreed, there's more info on just about anything today Probably more info on buggy whips than when they were actually being made. OTOH, sometimes the depth of technical information doesn't approach what you can get with some cheap used engineering books. I'm not getting rid of the library yet.
 
I agree....But this article get in deep and may do more to confuse.
I prefer the article titled "Arc Angles" from Stereophile. Available from several sources. I think Vinyl Engine has it.
It gets deep also but explains most adjustments. A real eye opener.
In the 60 years I have been doing phonography, I found it to be the best.
 
What is the old saying:" Those that can do, those that can't figure". A lot of figuring is going on with all the debate about which camp to jump into with the various compromises the various alignment systems promote.

Even the tangent tracking tables have some non linearity as does the cutting lathe itself.

I prefer to examine the waveform recovered from the record groove via a oscilloscope and minimize the tracking distortion as it is observed. Any of the alignment schemes will get you very close and yes many mass market arm/turntables are horrible, you can not condemn everyone on a tight budget. You set it up for them the best you can.

Elitism and the search for perfection that can not be attained will drive many away to the world of "perfect" digital sound.
 
I prefer to examine the waveform recovered from the record groove via a oscilloscope and minimize the tracking distortion as it is observed.

and the lowest would be at the null points. which brings us back to the original.
 
The HIFI news test record has test tracks at three different locations on the record, not at the common null points as well as 3 torture tracks progressing towards the center.

The old school AT and Shure test records for the trade, also had the tracks arranged not necessarily to make use of the null points.

The lowest distortion is not at the null points but at the easier to track outside portions of the record, the inner grooves will always challenge the trackability of the system.
 
"not many tonearms and probably way fewer integrated arms on tables are set up correctly"
and yet it is easy to do if you start with your tonearm's actual mounting distance and use the null point calculator over at vinyl engine to find the correct effective length and corresponding null points for your chosen geometry. Sometimes your tonearm's mounting distance and headshell slot length will allow you a choice. Other times you are limited to just stevenson. unles you get a longer headshell or a cartridge that has a longer 'stylus tip-to-cartridge body mounting hole distance' .
 
The different alignment choices have their advantages and the tracking across the record is not the same as stated. Fortunately, most can make adjustments to try different set ups and determine what works best for them. Interesting that this discussion seems populated by those that have an idea about this topic and is not getting comments from folks with regular turntables that would probably respond to some adjustments. I don't now what brands are good or bad about proper alignment for best playback and would use appropriate tools available on VE to start looking at when the table is doing.
 
The HIFI news test record has test tracks at three different locations on the record, not at the common null points as well as 3 torture tracks progressing towards the center.

The old school AT and Shure test records for the trade, also had the tracks arranged not necessarily to make use of the null points.

The lowest distortion is not at the null points but at the easier to track outside portions of the record, the inner grooves will always challenge the trackability of the system.
I think were into two different issues here. The minimum tracking error distortion will be at the null points. How poorly the cart tracks anywhere on the album is a separate issue from what the OP linked to.
 
Are you talking theory or the reality of what comes out of the groove.

Do not forget that too many prominent "audiophile approved" cartridges have styli that have been attached out of square by 1,2 and I have even seen 3 degrees. I would send them back if they came out of our stock and then deal with the distributors latter.

All the Wild scopes I have used had a built in crosshair to allow accurate observation of the diamond orientation.

While alignment is important, and way to many mainstream turntable companies fail the basic math, I think it is over blown.

What distortions are you attributing to alignment issues? The contact surfaces are radii, even the microline and Shibata types. A few degrees phase shift will happen as the stylus dog tracks in the groove but losing contact with the groove wall would be caused by many other factors.
 
Might I take this time to remind everyone that every tonearm ever designed was designed around one particular alignment. Many early arm designs were based on the Stevenson alignment for several reasons. First, the Stevenson alignment put lots of tracking error at the beginning of the record but ended up with almost no tracking error at the end of the record. This was a particularly good alignment for those "long-hairs" that liked extended classical music type of albums. As an example, a tonearm designed with a 215mm pivot to spindle distance designed with a Stevenson alignment, put the offset angle at around 22.6°. The offset angle was then translated (and paralleled) back to the tonearm pivots, so that when a warp was encountered, the arm (and more importantly, the stylus) would "bob" up and down during the warp and keep proper contact with the record grooves.

When we set-up a cartridge in a Baerwald or Lofgren B alignment in an arm that was designed around a Stevenson alignment, we find that there is now a problem in the relationship between the offset angle of the alignment, and the offset angle of the tonearm pivots (a Lofgren B's offset angle in the same 215 pivot to spindle distance arm would be 23.6°, not the design intended 22.6° angle. This now means that when the stylus encounters a warp, the offset angle of the cartridge and the offset angle of the arm are no longer parallel (off by 1°) and the stylus now has a "roll" in azimuth as it tracks the grooves thru a warp.

Of course, super expensive arms have their tonearm pivots "square to the world", ignoring any offset angle design considerations and (IMO) suffer the greatest azimuth roll during a record warp.

BTW, while some might think that a linear tracking tonearm is "tracking perfection", it is not. Those arm owners have the same problem achieving an alignment "perfection" as any other owner of a pivoting arm.

'ner
 
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Dancing around the theory, would you not have to carefully dial in the dynamic resonance of the arm/ cantilever system and then carefully maximize the crosstalk/ channel separation before any 1 degree error would even be in the ballpark of relevance?
 
Who says the 1° is irrelevant? I'm simply pointing out that while everyone is so targeting the perfect alignment for their table, there maybe a fundamental flaw that is being overlooked. Don't you find it funny how so many people use test records, but many have no clue that the record may very well not be centered in its evil, spiral groove. While we live in the days of such sophisticated computers and sensors, our beloved friends at the "record plant" still can't seem to figure out how to center a spiral. Ever watch your tone arm move back and forth while playing? So much for alignments..........

Every record is warped (to some degree or another) and every record's spiral groove is not properly centered. Lets not get into a discussion on record hold diameter and spindle diameter.
 
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