Clearthinker earlier brought up a great point about zenith errors in the fastening of the stylus tip to the cantilever, which of course is done by the manufacturer. This came up in the other long thread on the Viv Float tonearm. Apparently, Ogura, and Namiki, who make the cantilever/stylus assemblies for most new cartridges, have a tolerance of +/-5 degrees in zenith. Even an error of a few degrees will throw off even the most carefully done alignment. So I imagine that many of us who think our cartridges are near perfectly aligned are laboring under a delusion. This was demonstrated to me graphically and computationally in my own home with actual measurements. When my cartridge was then twisted in the headshell to compensate for zenith error, three of us in the room heard a massive improvement in clarity. Sorry to Clearthinker that I did not recognize the importance of his remark when he first mentioned it here. I am not sure what dentdog is describing, but it does sound as if he had the same epiphany regarding zenith adjustment. Unfortunately, probably none of us has the tools needed to correct for aberrant zenith by actual measurement at home. For one thing, mine was done with a special test LP that enabled measuring IM distortion.
