Azimuth and the Fozgometer

Dan: Nice! The Talea is a unique tone arm. It would be great if more tone arm designers and manufacturers began treating arm height and azimuth adjustments with the same importance as they do tracking force (counterweight) adjustments. With so many tone arms, arm height and/or azimuth adjustments are either lacking entirely or crudely implemented. On-the-fly adjustments may not be a priority but at least they should be easy and fairly quick adjustments.

I still think the Fozgometer offers a good starting point (an easily repeatable reference) for fine-tuning azimuth adjustment, even for tone arms like the Talea.

Tom

I don't quite understand your post, Dan. It would seem that if you own a Talea or any other tonearm with easy, accurate, and repeatable azimuth adjustment (Triplanar, Reed), then the usefulness of a device that provides an electronic method for setting azimuth is all the more merited. This is not to say that the Foz is the one and only good choice for this purpose. Once you get it electrically "right", you can fine tune by ear. IOW, I agree with the last sentence of Tom's post, in essence, altho I'm still in the dark re the Foz per se.

I ordered one from Acoustic Sounds and I had it in five days (at cheapest postal rates).

It took less than 10 minutes to fine tune azimuth with this meter (very stable, unequivocal readings). Unlike the Wally instrument, the readings held steady. Also, unlike the Wally instrument, I did not have to deal with making conversions to db to do a left minus right, right minus left calculation. My adjustment from visual, perpendicular alignment was extremely small (I cannot reliably see the difference). In other words, it is a very sensitive instrument that shows the result of VERY small adjustments.

Of course, it is minimizing crosstalk at only one test frequency (1 kz on the Analogue Productions test lp), unless one finds other test lps with single channel signals at other frequencies.

After browsing the Feikert instructions, I realize that I require a no-brainer" device like the Fozgometer. It is now making the rounds of my friends.

Of course, it is minimizing crosstalk at only one test frequency (1 kz on the Analogue Productions test lp), unless one finds other test lps with single channel signals at other frequencies.

Two reasons in one sentence why some of us will probably never buy it.

First, 1kHz is well below the optimal frequencies for setting azimuth.

Second, as Mike Lavigne and others have repeatedly explained, minimizing crosstalk provides only an approximation. One must still tweak from there to minimize inter-channel phase discrepancies. He, Dan and I do this by ear. So can anyone, with practice. The Foz doesn't do it at all.

For $250 the Foz quickly and reliably gets one in the ballpark. However, as Larryi also discovered, making the stylus visibly vertical also gets one in the ballpark, so close that "adjustment from visual, perpendicular alignment was extremely small (I cannot reliably see the difference)." How much more in the ballpark need one get than that? Why spend serious money to just to get in the ballpark? I can get there for free in seconds using the loupe and Mint protractor I already own.

As Dan suggests, azimuth is easily and accurately adjusted in two simple steps:
1) make the the stylus vertical by eye;
2) fine tune in TINY increments by ear.

The Talea makes executing step 2 much faster, but it can be done by ear on any arm with adjustable azimuth.

100% what Doug said. Getting AZ correct by listening can be problematic for even seasoned listeners when using an arm that requires the adjuster to start and stop while actually changing the AZ. This can make it very easy to lose the reference that was just heard prior to stopping to make the change. For this reason I would use my DMM to crudely minimize crosstalk with my Triplanar one time, then adjust by ear from there.

Palasr and I played with the OTF azimuth on the Talea proto at his place. I would describe the change by recalling to everyone the Bose radio commercials where the picture of that tiny system suddenly grows to some enormous size. That is how I would describe the change in sound when the AZ is dialed in and out on the Talea. You can easily hear the fullness of sound come in and out. It takes very small turns on the AZ adjust screw of the Talea.

I have nothing against the Foz, I just don't need it or Feikert's software with the Talea. Heck, I don't even need my DMM anymore, not that it was all that helpful. :-)