This wasn't a problem in the old days, when styluses were round, or close to round. Your $495 cartridge report provides one more piece of information: your stylus's zenith angle error. You've precisely set up your cartridge without a microscope or an oscilloscope.Ī cartridge under the microscope at WAM Engineering. Set the tracking force roughly, adjust overhang, do the final setting of the tracking force, and set the antiskating force.
#Sat sme tonearm forum install
Now remove the WallyReference and install your cartridge. WallyTools offers an online calculator to help you figure this out, for any tonearm effective length. For every degree of azimuth change, SRA changes almost 0.5° on 9" tonearms and 0.33° on 12" arms. However, if you're using a "straight pipe" tonearm, with the offset angle at the headshell, rotating the headshell or armtube to set azimuth also changes SRA. Adjust your azimuth mechanism until you can slip the measuring shim under the raised corner of the WallyReference and the 1.50°/mm mark comes to rest under the corner of the blade. A 1mm lift at the corner of the WallyReference blade equals 1° of azimuth change. Install the left/right (azimuth) axis single blade WallyReference. According to the report, the ideal azimuth setting, which in the WallyTools lab produced channel separation of 29.8dB LR and 29.2dB RL, required a 1.50°/mm headshell (or armtube) rotation, clockwise when looking at the front of the cartridge.Ī phono cartridge mounted with WallyTools corrective shim. The report also includes results for azimuth error. You've just precisely adjusted SRA for your cartridge, which is not even mounted yet on the arm, without the hassle of using a microscope! Adjust tonearm height until you can slide the measuring shim under the lifted corner of the blade and the shim stops at the 0.375°/mm mark. The closest index on a WallyReference shim is for 0.375°/mm, which is close enough for anyone. The WallyTools report says that the appropriate SRA correction for the Haniwa cartridge is 0.37°/mm in the clockwise directionthat is, lowering the tail of the arm, which raises the front blade off the record surface. Install the front/back (single-blade, SRA) WallyReference on the tonearm, with tonearm height and azimuth set so that the WallyReference is resting flat on a disposable record.
It's very useful, especially for frequent cartridge swappers.
#Sat sme tonearm forum how to
A few columns back, I told you about the WallyReference tool used to level a tonearm relative to the platter and how to set azimuth to produce a repeatable "baseline" so that whenever you mount that cartridge, you don't have to go through the whole setup rigmarole. Writing about something and experiencing it are very different things. Hands On with a Wallytools-Inspected Cartridge Not that the Lyra or Ortofon feeding the Arion Mk.II didn't also sound very fine.Ĭonsidering the meticulous care that went into the design and the excellent "Made in the U.S.A." build quality, the Luminous Audio Technology Arion Mk.II should be on your under-$10k phono preamp audition listas well as on your over $10k list, especially if you own or are considering buying the Analog Relax EX1000 cartridge. The Audio Relax EX1000 (on the Schröder arm, with the OMA K3 arm/turntable) feeding the Arion Mk.IIeven loaded at 100 ohms (the cartridge's 15 ohm internal impedance would suggest at least a 150 ohm load)produced a dazzling presentation that enhanced and intensified the best qualities of both to produce among the most enticing vinyl-playback combos I've yet heard.
As I prepared to run the Audio Relax EX1000 into the Arion Mk.II, I was thinking that it might be too much of a good thingthat the velvety-sounding EX1000 and the sweet-sounding, electronic texturefree Arion might produce an additive muddle.