Hello Steve and friends. I've been watching a thread dealing with AR overhang specs. So I started playing around with alignment of my XV-15.
I have been using a Stevenson alignment with ConradH Arc protractor generator. TT is my Modded Yamaha TT500.
I decided to switch to Baerwald. Well lo and behold, a change. The dynamics just jumped out at me. The sound stage seemed to spread out a bit. I was quite happy with the SQ I was getting, but now, it's like an improved cartridge .
How is it possible, that changing alignment formats , can produce such improvements ?
I've been waiting for the alignment expertise crew to jump in here to answer your question, but they ain't jumpin' lately! Maybe it's because the question is deep into a long thread about a lot of things besides alignment we could forgive them, maybe. Anyway, I'll offer what little I know/remember about it from studying up I did a couple years ago, when I was trying to get my XV-15 better aligned on my Dual 1229 after mating the Pfanstiehl 4822-DEE .2x.7 Stanton-style aftermarket stylus on it. At first the stylus was remarkable, but then, as I tried it with more and more different sorts of records, I kept getting terrible sibilance. I just need to align it correctly I thought. I started reading many AK and vinylengine threads about alignment, I started printing out alignment protractors of various nationalities, and trying to use them. Eventually, I gave up and put that stylus away, and I didn't learn until late last fall, reading posts about it by needlestein that that stylus is a fine one, but only if you are willing to dial the VTF well above the published specs to as high as 3.5 grams! It is essentially unusable at 1.5g. (I am happily using it now at 2-2.15 grams.)
But anyway I may have learned some things about alignment while struggling in futility with that stylus, and those things go something like this:
a) for various reasons, it is totally impossible for a cartridge/stylus combo to be perfectly aligned while playing all of the grooves of a record;
b) alignment protractors essentially strive for having them perfectly aligned at two different points across the groove bed and additionally strive for the alignment in the grooves before, between, and after those two points to be "acceptable";
c) whichever two points are chosen there are *trade-offs* that effect what passes for the acceptability factors in the less-well aligned tracks;
d) the different alignment protractor designs, therefore, make different choices regarding those factors.
Could choosing a different alignment protractor give you somewhat different listening results? Yes, if the choices they are making differ enough. (It also might matter what sort of records you're listening to, as well as, might other things that can affect tracking and sound: VTF, VTA, anti-skate...yadda, yadda, yadda. Maybe the alignment that sounds less well could sound better if one or more of those other things were corrected, adjusted, fiddled with.)
I haven't delved back into this issue lately since my Miracord has a pointed post I can raise. If I adjust the cart in the holder, so that the needle is right over the post's point, I'm supposed to be aligned. Much less hair-pulling involved than with my previous experience, and as far as I can tell it works "acceptably."