Cartridge Azimuth - Is It Worth The Hassle?

Yes, it's definitely important, but I personally prefer not to do it myself, because it could drives me to a nervous breakdown. Thankfully, I have a very good close friend, who actually enjoy doing it, and is happy to do it for me when needed. Otherwise I enjoy to play with all others turntable/cart adjustments, but accurate azimuth adjustment is something beyond my psychological tolerance, so if there's no one willing and capable to help, I would prefer to let it at any random position.

 

I wonder about steel in close proximity to a cartridge?

Having said that are all arms made of non steel materials - not sure about that either?!

 

I have just finished aligning my cart with shibata stylus. The only problem I had was not a channel imbalance but sound clarity issue. The sound was not good enough to my ears in terms of good details and transparency. As soon as I checked the azimuth I realized that the deviation from vertical line was in about 2 degrees to the left. I fixed the problem by loosening a bit the right screw and applying a little more force to the left screw. As soon as fixed it the sound was improved drastically!

 

Voltmeter and a test record. It's really quite simple and the difference is very noticeable. That Crazy Little Thing Called "Azimuth" Part 2

 

Is that what you call "quite simple"?

 

Once you get the hang of it, yes. Takes 15 minutes max.

 

When you have a voltmeter and built a box, yes.

 

Since phase is also important you should record the signal to look at it. See

Dropbox - Azimuth adjustment.pdf

 

a box isn't absolutely necessary

 

That's the method I use also - and like you, I can get it done in 15 minutes. I think it's worth the effort.

 

Since stereo cartridges have channel imbalance how do compensate for this to achieve the best azimuth setting?

 

Azimuth is adjusted to reduce channel crosstalk and phase difference, not balance.

 

One can also take a mono lp leave the preamp in stereo. Wire one channel out of phase and twist headshell or arm tube for the least output at the speakers or headphones.

 

Channel balance need to be adjusted for by a balance control, very seldom present on RIAA amps. For azimuth you need to have both symmetry in phase and level, and this within very small adjustments. A stylus azimuth should not deviate more than 1-2° to compensate for the coil azimuth.

 

I tried something a bit different to set my azimuth. I wonder if it's considered a correct method. The turntable in question is the Thorens TD-203 and the cartridge/stylus is the Ortofon 2M Blue. After doing my best with a mirror, I digitized a short passage of music on a mono LP with Audacity and then checked the decibel level of each channel in the Goldwave program. At first, the right channel was around 1 dB louder. After turning the azimuth adjuster, the left channel became louder. Then, after 15 or more slight adjustments, I got the difference down to around .05 of one dB. I didn't think it was worth the effort to get the levels any closer than that. The audio result sounds very good, but I'm not sure I can even detect the difference between a 1 dB and a .05 dB difference between tracks. I really tried this just to see if I could change these levels using the azimuth adjusting wheel. On my previous turntable, the azimuth was hard to adjust, but the Thorens TD-203 has a very large wheel that makes it easy.

Now I just wonder if this method really got me correct azimuth. I never heard it mentioned as such.

 

Azimuth adjustments usually involve looking at crosstalk as measured by recording a 1Khz (L to R and R to L) test tone off a test record. What you did there was adjust channel balance, not azimuth, AFAIK. Not the same thing. Some carts will have channel imbalance even when azimuth is close to perfect because they have just slightly more coil winds on one side of the generator than the other. Typically the cartridge manufacturer will spec a tolerance for this. Looks like Ortofon allows the 2M Blue to have up to 1.5dB difference in the channel balance.

 

Thanks for the reply. So, if you can't have perfect azimuth and balance at the same time, I assume it's better to choose azimuth and leave the channels not perfectly balanced. If the 2M blue can have a 1.5 dB imbalance, my azimuth was probably correct before I did the channel balance. Doing the completely correct azimuth procedure is just more complicated than I wanted to do. I'll just re-set the azimuth by eye and mirror.

 

Looks bob on!

 

Even very expensive carts can have a small channel imbalance. If you do not have an appropriate test record to do the test described above then a mirror is a good method to use. I use the mirror before attempting to do anything else.