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.
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.