Posted by Roy on October 23, 2004 at 15:35:41:
Lew,
A couple of weeks ago we were discussing azimuth adjustment of cartridges and your comments inspired me to try harder with the adjustment of my cartridge. I had been more than happy with its performance even though its has a reputation for bad tracking and that bad side of it has plagued me as well. I had intended to leave the adjustment until my scope was sorted out but my itchy fingers got the better of me and a few day’s ago I made several very small adjustments to where I thought the azimuth should be adjusted to, then, like a bolt of lightning as the stylus hit the groove, wonderfulness. I wasn’t even in the sweet spot I was just at the side of the room and every aspect of the sound improved. Sound stage size was larger as you said but even though it was larger image placement was much better as well, I was totally flabbergasted by the change. I hadn’t even given the tacking ability of the cartridge a thought at the time but now, after a few day’s, I realise the cartridge is tracking so my better as well. I just put on an LP with female voice that I had remembered was notoriously tricky on a band or two and it tracks those bands a treat now.
Perfect azimuth adjustment is essential and at least for my cartridge the perfect position is very, very narrow indeed but its worth all the effort to get it spot on. When I get some time I will build a fine adjustment feature for azimuth into my tone arm.
Roy