devinplombier,
I haven’t personally tried the method described by Faustus, but from a purely theoretical standpoint, the model itself may make sense.
That said, before concluding that it truly works, I would still apply the old principle that practice is the criterion of truth — and verify it experimentally with a Fozgometer.
Here’s how I would approach it.
First, I would use the Fozgometer to make sure the device indicates a perfectly centered azimuth position. Then I would switch the preamp into mono mode while playing a test record and carefully verify what actually happens in the channels, confirming that this indeed corresponds to the optimal azimuth position.
After that, I would intentionally introduce a very small and controlled azimuth deviation in a known direction — for example, enough for one channel to show +0.4 and the other correspondingly -0.4. In other words, I would deliberately move slightly away from the ideal azimuth center.
Then I would repeat the mono listening test and try to hear whether any leakage, artifacts, or residual signal begins appearing in the expected left or right channel.
If artifacts appear where previously there was complete silence, then yes — that would strongly suggest the method is actually valid and practically useful.
But if no audible artifacts appear at all despite the measurable azimuth deviation on the phase meter, then that tells us something important as well: namely, that the method may not provide meaningful real-world precision because its informational threshold lies beyond either human hearing or the resolving capability of the playback chain itself.
At the same time, I wouldn’t make the mistake of assuming that “if we cannot hear the 0.4 difference, then this deviation doesn’t matter.”
As I mentioned earlier, azimuth adjustment is very similar to focusing a camera lens. For perfect focus, there is only one exact position. Once maximum sharpness is achieved, even a tiny movement in either direction immediately softens the image. Move the focus ring slightly left or right — the image blurs.
The same thing happens with sound.
And realistically, achieving that exact “focus point” without instrumentation is highly unlikely, because the goal is not to make the stylus body visually perpendicular — the goal is to place the actual needle perfectly in the groove.
The stylus itself may not be mounted perfectly on the cantilever.
The cantilever may not be perfectly aligned relative to the cartridge body.
The cartridge body may not sit perfectly in the headshell.
The headshell itself may have microscopic tolerances.
Each deviation may only be measured in microns, but together they accumulate into a meaningful stylus misalignment.
That’s why I eventually moved away from purely visual tools and templates. For about seven years I used traditional alignment methods, but later switched to AnalogMagik, which I still use today. And honestly, the appearance of that software was a genuine revolution.
Because despite the importance of azimuth, there are other equally critical parameters — especially VTA and tracking force. And this is where things become extremely interesting.
Traditionally, cartridge setup used to follow a fairly rigid formula:
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make the tonearm parallel to the record,
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set tracking force according to the cartridge manufacturer’s recommendation,
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then fine-tune azimuth and anti-skate.
That was considered “correct.”
But in reality, VTA and tracking force interact with each other. Some cartridges clearly perform better with the rear of the tonearm slightly raised. In that case, increasing tracking force slightly may improve stylus geometry in the groove. Other cartridges prefer a slightly lower arm position, where a lighter tracking force becomes optimal.
So what you actually end up with is an equation involving both VTA and tracking force simultaneously.
And once you hear the result, you realize that even one tenth of a gram changes the sound significantly. What makes this even more complicated is that two cartridges of the exact same model may still behave differently due to small production variations in suspension compliance.
That changes optimal tracking force.
Which changes stylus angle.
Which changes effective VTA behavior.
And this is precisely where AnalogMagik becomes incredibly powerful, because it optimizes these parameters sequentially and interactively rather than treating them as isolated adjustments. Without that kind of analytical feedback, arriving at the true optimum purely empirically is, in my opinion, practically impossible.
So for me, cartridge setup with AnalogMagik and cartridge setup without it are essentially two completely different worlds. I’ve personally seen extremely experienced vinyl enthusiasts — people with 40 years in analog playback, repairing tonearms, building phono stages and amplifiers — initially react very skeptically to the software.
Their attitude was basically:
“What could this program possibly know that my ears don’t after 40 years?”
But after actually trying it, many of them ended up saying:
“I honestly didn’t expect this level of improvement.”
And I think the reason is exactly this: the software finds combined optimization points that often differ from what visually appears “correct” to us. That takes cartridge setup far beyond the old standard routine of: tonearm parallel to the record, tracking force by the manual, azimuth centered, anti-skate adjusted so the inner groove doesn’t mistrack, and done.
So those are my thoughts on phase meters and azimuth adjustment.
Disclaimer: I don’t sell AnalogMagik and I don’t sell anything on this forum. I just give private free consultations how to improve the sound of any High End system.
