getting azimuth right


I was checking the alignment and it just occured to me the the stylus was listing towards the inside of the record. The cartridge is perpendicular to the record but the stylus is not right. So... I made some some azimuth adjustments. Well, to say that their was an improvement would be putting it lightly. At first it sounded a little thin, then... The sound went from being somewhat fat to more precise, larger soundstage, blacker, tighter bass with more impact and weight. My cartridge never tracked the inside grooves of a record like this before. The sound is relaxed and natural. However, the cartridge now leans towards the outside of the record slightly, but the stylus is now perpendicular to the record. Is this unusual? The difference in horns and piano is amazing. I think I learned something today. Wow. The sound is so relaxed and not edgy and the decay.... wow. I learned how important getting azimuth right is. I can't even say how many times I have worked on getting the aligment right and fiddled with this cartridge. I just got a big payoff for my labors

I had to write this because I hope to share this info with others that may be going through what I did and to not give up on analog. I just know their has to be others that have overlooked this. How can this be? I thought the cartridge should perfectly perpedicular to the record and the whole straw on the tonearm thing. Not so. You really have to look good. The mintlp kit helped me very much in figuring this out. Now I can see how important an azimuth tool can be. I can tell there is probably some fine tuning I could do but I am excited to say the least.
tzh21y
I ve used the ear method to adjust azimuth and have enjoyed a lot of music with my labor and time to set azimuth this way. A friend lent me his Fozgometer I was surprised that my low output cartridge .23mv worked straight into the meter. I was with in 1db of equal on the meter for left and right channels and decided to get both channels equal for a sound check.

Well i'm glad i did it took all of 3 minutes to set both channels equal and the results of this are a big step up from before the use of this fine vinyl tool on my rig. I spend a fair amount of cash on my system but for the results i am hearing i believe the price of a Fozgometer is well worth its cost. If you want to tweak from the equal point on the meter at least you have a benchmark to work with.
I'm interested in this software as I use a digital RIAA implementation and have all the hardware, and really the means to do most of what the software can. Still, I'm interested.

I see you can use Source>WAV and load wav files? I would need to do so after applying the RIAA curve to my files (or maybe not with 1kHz tone). Can anyone verify I can run all tests and plots from wav file source?

thanks!
What does the fozgometer measure? Are you going for equal crosstalk level? The fact is cartridges show a level difference between L and R. Adjusting azimuth for equal crosstalk is not a useful and accurate method.
Jazzgene - who are you asking?

Adjusting for phase 1st seems to be preferred, and even VTA appears to affect channel sep.