Dr Feickert alignment tool

What happened to the Dr Feickert alignment tool? Looking at all the options, that one seemed easiest to use. Seems no one has them anymore. Any leads? Ebay shows a Chinese knock-off, don’t really want to go there unless there is no other options.

 

Music Direct, Cable Co, Upscale Audio.

M~

 

Bought one recently and it is awesome. Super precise and easy to use. I nailed my first alignment ever in about 20 minutes

 

Feickert Next Generation Cartridge Protractor Alignment Tool | LP GEAR

 

Like most other US-based stores, it also says ⚠ Temporarily out of stock. But looks like there are still some available from UK sources.

 

Says out of stock.

Anyway, I found one at Elusive Disc

 

The ebay knock-off looks pretty good, though not cheap for a knock-off. Who knows; it may come out of the same factory.

IMO both of them suffer, though, from not having a mirrored surface for cantilever alignment.

 

It will be a shame if Dr. Feickert protractor becomes unavailable. It is imo one of the easiest, most accurate, most versatile tools for cartridge alignment.

 

The one that comes with the HiFi News LP has caused me nothing but frustrations and wasted efforts.

 

The Dr feickert doesn’t need it. The contrast is incredibly high. I found it easier to line up than a mirrored surface.

 

I sprung for a Mint LP for my VPI and found that its mirrored surface is hard to use.

 

Exactly! I had played around with all kinds of protractors and then when I finally got the DR. Feikckert I was able to align my first cartridge with zero error the first time I tried it!

 

Now that I've used it a couple of times I prefer the Feickert to the Mint Protractor. It really makes things simple.

 

My OCD kicked in and I ordered a Dr Feickert protractor. My previous alignment was using a Conrad Hoffman template that matched the specs of my tonearm - pro-ject x1 - 218.5 effective length and 18 overhang. Those specs are darn spot on for Lofgren A.

The Feickert aligns near perfectly for Stevenson with my current settings but off for Lofgren and Baerwald - would need to move cartridge considerably farther up in the head shell which affects sound quality. The Hoffman template with my tonarm specs calculates a 15.96 overhang using Stevenson. So the Feickert protract where I think things sound best is for Stevenson which equates to Hoffman Lofgren A template using tonearm specs with DIN radius measurement. If I use "typical" radius measurement Stevenson is darn close to tonearm specs.

Am I doing something wrong or is the Feickert based on "typical" radius specs.

 

Some Pro-Ject turntables with the shorter arms are incapable of achieving true Lofgren A alignment. The arms simply don’t allow enough overhang with a typical cartridge.

 

Which hash mark on the plate are you using? There are four close together evenly spaced, and a fifth a bit further back.

 

The one that is further back at the two null points. The center marks where you set the alignment method based on spindle distance has only one place to place the stylus. Baerwald and Lofgren place the cartridge way too forward.

 

The VPI gauge is quite accurate and only an ant's hair off of the Lor B alignment.

M~

 

One thing the Feickert tool will reveal is if the tone arm’s y axis is even a hair out of plumb. (That error/defect would mean if your tone arm could go around a full 360, it would trace an ellipse, not a perfect circle.)

 

What's odd is that the pro-ject specs for the arm states it uses Lofgren A alignment. With DIN radius measures the Hoffman template for Lofgren A works. What is strange is this equates to Stevenson on the Feickert tool. No way achieve Lofgren A on the Feickert without the cartridge being way too forward in the head shell. If I use TYPICAL radius for Stevenson using the Hoffman template, overhang measures correctly at 18mm and is near identical to Hoffman Lofgren A with DIN.

 

Not sure which arm your table has, but the arm supplied on the Debut Carbon (8.6cc I believe) cannot align to the typical Lofgren null points. It can get close with atypical cartridges that have forward mounted or long cantilevers.

 

The Mint is trickier to use because of the depth of the glass relative to the printed surface and low contrast to the arc.
With good lighting and magnification the Mint becomes more accurate because you can check the stylus point to the arc at the far inner point by the spindle and the far outer point at the rim of the platter.
Visibility is very good for making the cantilever parallel to the runway lines though.
When lining up the stylus point radius just to the null points I have found that there is room for improvement when checked against the far inner and outer points on the arc.
The other issue is the process of establishing the pivot to spindle distance introduces additional error. Depending on tonearm it becomes a guess at best.
The Mint is pre-sized for your tonearm and table.

 

I reached out directly to Chris Feickert and sent him pics. His best guess is pro-ject is overly optimistic with their overhang specs. I have read elsewhere about wrong specs published for audio equipment. Don't know why it would be so hard to publish accurate specs, especially for mounted tonearms. Seems a pretty straightforward calculation.

 

What I don’t get is why they didn’t just make it a 9” arm.

 

Here’s the advantage of the Feickert tool: You don’t even have to know the pivot to spindle distance. All you need to do is make sure the tool’s point gets placed exactly over the arm’s pivot point. Whatever number shows up on the bar is irrelevant.