Someone somewhere wrote of the DaVinci that lack of azimuth adjustment made for a simplified construction and in part could account for the perceived superb sound quality. And I think there may be some truth in that. The add-on mechanisms required to allow for azimuth adjustment, different as they are among different expensive tonearms, probably do introduce some measure of added distortion. These things are always a trade-off, and I would not kick a DaVinci out of my house on the basis that it lacked azimuth adjustment.
On the other hand, I have to disagree with Dertonearm. None of us, including him, can "examine" a cartridge and thereby determine whether it came from the factory with perfect azimuth alignment, mostly because the "money" is where we cannot see it, up inside the cartridge body or within the magnet structure for cartridges that do not have a "body" per se. Perfect azimuth is NOT necessarily determined by observing whether the stylus is perfectly perpendicular to the plane of the headshell; it is merely a good start in that direction. Nor do I think that most manufacturers' quality control is so good that we can expect azimuth perfection in proportion to the dollars (or Euros) spent on the cartridge. That's just wishful thinking, and if we return all cartridges that are not perfect in that parameter, most manufacturers would go broke or change businesses.
If I understand Halcro correctly, he is implying that having the capacity to adjust azimuth is actually a disadvantage, because with such tonearms there is the equal possibility that the headshell will not be plane parallel to the LP surface on any given day, just by random chance and due to limited visual acuity, even when the mounting is perfectly done. So it follows if the tonearm has provision for azimuth adjustment, one is almost obligated to determine correct azimuth and adjust for it. He may have something there. |
Sorry, should have written "including he", not "including him" in the second paragraph above. |
Dertonearm, I guess it is fair to say that misinformed persons might play with azimuth to correct channel imbalance, but one hopes such persons would soon learn the folly of their ways. As to your second statement, I don't often look at styli with a microscope, so I take your word for it that they are seldom mispositioned, but I have seen many a "high end" cartridge with slightly off-center cantilevers or cantilevers that are at an angle with respect to the mid-line of the cartridge body. In any case, none of these visual cues are sufficient to make one sanguine about azimuth, because the misalignment that necessitates azimuth adjustment is usually not visible by external inspection, even with a microscope, as I wrote before. It's a matter of how the coils align with the magnet structure. |
Dear DT, Adjusting azimuth is not the best way to deal with channel imbalance that you describe in your example. Azimuth has very little effect on channel balance. Azimuth affects crosstalk, of the L channel signal into the R channel and vice-versa. This is not the same as channel balance. To prove this to myself, I once did the experiment with my Triplanar. Extreme azimuth change, from one side to the other, effected at most a 1db change in channel balance (going from extreme right bias to extreme left bias), and in doing so resulted in azimuth that was entirely unacceptable in any other way. (Stylus way over on its side, so signal was distorted and stylus wear would be an issue, and crosstalk was way off.) |
Dear Rockitman,
If you want to use your own tools to adjust for azimuth, I do not think it is as simple as Dertonearm implies. You also need a pure test tone on an LP (usually 1kHz will suffice, but if you are fanatical you could use more than one frequency, and ideally a notch filter to get rid of spurious noise above and below the test frequency. This is why Fozgometer sells. You zero out both channels for equal gain. Then you play a test signal on one channel only. Measure voltage. Call that "0db". Now play the same test signal into the same channel and measure voltage that appears on the opposite channel. That will be a much smaller voltage, hopefully. Convert that into db, which will be a negative number, like -20db or lower. This is "crosstalk". Do the same in reverse. You will have two values of crosstalk in terms of negative db. Now play with azimuth and see how the values change. Some like to adjust for equal crosstalk in both channels. Some others like to adjust for lowest possible crosstalk, regardless of whether the numbers are equal in value. (I have always observed that I can get less crosstalk if I settle for unequal crosstalk. For example, I might be able to get -25db in both channels at 1 kHz. But if I just shoot for least crosstalk, I might get two values of say -28db and -30db. Life is funny that way.) |
Dear DT, After all the times I wrote my contrary opinion and all the times you seemed to agree with me, are you saying once again that you can tell by visual inspection of a cartridge that it will have "perfect" azimuth, i.e., that 90 degrees of azimuth will extract the best crosstalk results? Because I still think that notion is dead wrong. It certainly is a good thing if the stylus and cantilever appear perfectly aligned, but it tells you nothing about the alignment of the coils with the magnet structure, the major determinant of variation in crosstalk. If you can tell me why I am incorrect, I am willing to learn something.
I would love to see an EM photo of a cartridge stylus. With any decent EM set to its lowest magnification, the surface of a stylus tip would look like a vast plain such as we have here east of the Rocky Mts. However, it seems to me one would be too close (the magnification would be too high) to tell much about stylus shape and degree of wear, kind of like identifying an elephant by feeling its tail while blindfolded. |
Like most things Italian, the Grandezza is simply gorgeous. "Simply" is the operative word, too. I am thankful that it is so expensive that I cannot be tempted to buy one. For 95,000 more US dollars, I can have a used Ferrari. |
OK, so a few of those incredible Italian industrial designers slipped across the border from Italy into Switzerland. Perhaps politics had something to do with that. One can see many Ferrari's zipping around Alpine roads. I was once overtaken by a 250GT on a downhill heading into Ventimiglia, at a speed never to be forgotten. First, a dot in my rear view mirror, then in an instant passing me, then in another instant a dot on the horizon. Alas, I was driving a rented Fiat.
If armboard is not plane parallel to platter, I would fix that not with azimuth adjust. Even if it made any sense to do it that way, azimuth adjust could only correct for one kind of error in the alignment, along one arc. Whereas, the error in armboard/platter alignment could describe any one of an infinite family of arcs. |
DT, I thought it was someone else who actually suggested that azimuth adjustment is a desirable feature, BECAUSE of possible problems related to the spatial location of the armboard with respect to the platter. We don't disagree on this.
However, I do get a sense of security with tonearms that provide for azimuth adjustment vs those that do not. Unfortunately, the sad fact is that most tonearms that offer the feature also change VTA along with azimuth, because to change azimuth, they rotate the arm tube near the pivot, not taking into account the offset angle of the headshell. Best way to do it is right at the headshell, so only the headshell rotates and only in the vertical plane of the stylus tip. Only Reed does it that way, or some detachable headshells offer it as well.
Actually, I was wrong in my geometrical analysis; the situation is even worse than I wrote, if one were to try to correct for armboard/platter disorientation using azimuth. At the very best, you could only restore the proper relationship (platter plane parallel to armboard) at one single point across the entire surface of an LP. And that's assuming the error was within the arc described. |
From photos, the Lustre tonearms do appear to be beautifully made. Is it the GST-801? (Of course, by the time we are reading this, the price on the Lustre has probably risen by $500.) Since by pure chance my L07D came with an NOS secondary tonearm mount for SAEC (so one can mount an SAEC at the rear of the chassis and thereby use a second tonearm as well as the primary one), i have been tempted to consider an SAEC as well. |
Gee Halcro, you say all those nice things about the Grandezza and then end up by saying it is a favorite of JV. Kind of ruins the picture for me. By the way ZYX UNIverse on Talea is possibly one of the best combos I have ever heard in my life.
What's the effective mass of the Copperhead? Those two others are of course high mass, and the fact that they sound good to you with high compliance MMs is at least serendipitous (meaning good to know but rather unexpected good luck), in my view. |
Great news! Now I will be able to pick up a used A90 for "peanuts", as all those who must have the latest and greatest will be shedding their outmoded and outdated A90s. I love it. And woe to the poor guy who has an NOS A90, hoping to sell it for more than retail price.
Dear Dgad, Thanks for pointing out the possibly synergy between ZYX UNIverse and wood tonearms. I can tell you that the combination of it with Talea was really great. Since I do already own a Reed, you have added fuel to the fire. My thinking was that there is a particular "sound" of unipivots, even the best ones like Talea and Graham, that may make them a good complement to the UNIverse. |
Luna, As we babble on, you've probably got the idea, as I have, that no one can really tell you which of these two tonearms will please you the most. Obviously they are both high quality items, so you have little to lose either way. |
