Cartridge Azimuth - Puffin to the rescue

[Chris]

After the very insightful meeting with Peter Ledermann, I was motivated to take a more in depth look at my cartridge azimuth. I knew that my Parks Audio Puffin had a nifty way to precisely measure and adjust cartridge azimuth so I printed out the instructions.

First up was my Soundsmith Otello cartridge mounted in a Jelcon 370H arm on my rebuilt SRM Tech Azure Rega turntable.

Following the instructions, using 1kHz left and right tones (Ortofon Test Record), I measured my beginning azimuth channel separation numbers:

Left 31.2 db
Right 31.5 db

After a lot of back and forth tweaking the headshell, I achieved the following results.

Left 35.8 db
Right 35.8 db

That makes a channel separation improvement of:

Left 4.5 db
Right 4.3 db

A pretty good result.

Next up is my very new Soundsmith Aida II mounted in a VPI 3D pivot tonearm on a VPI Classic 2 turntable.

Starting numbers were:

Left 25.9 db
Right 20 db

End numbers are:

Left 36.2 db
Right 32.7 db

For a net gain of:

Left 10.3 db
Right 12.7 db

Wow, that's a significant improvement. I'm not sure why there is a 3.5 db channel difference? I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

The lesson for me is "eyeballing" azimuth does not work with any accuracy. You need some measurement tool to dial this in.

The fact that the Puffin DSP Phono preamp can do this among its two dozen other adjustments just reinforces what an incredible value it is for $500.

I listened to several of my test tracks and was very happy with the sound. One track I use is the "Badia" track on Weather Report's Tale Spinnin' record. I have an original copy that has the mark "TML" in the dead wax. This indicates that this record was mastered by the great Doug Sax at The Mastaring Lab. The sound is incredible. The "Badia" track has a wide and deep soundstage with lots of percussive effects hard panned left and right. It was pretty stunning after the azimuth alignment.

I'd be interested in other people's experiences with azimuth adjustments.

[mark]

That Puffin digital phono preamp has a lot of useful features -- I also used it to set cartridge azimuth, according to the instructions on the Parks website. I got three to four dB improvement overall, bringing the cartridge up to at least the published specs (how often to you get that?!)

What I noticed was very small adjustments made a significant difference, suggesting to me at any rate that you couldn't do such fine alignment by eye.

I wonder if anyone has evaluated the impact of increasing cartridge channel separation? Is more always better, or do you hit a point of diminishing returns at some point?

The Puffin also has some great features for setting cartridge loading as well -- the Parks concept is to use various filters to achieve the overall frequency response you want, which is in fact what cartridge loading achieves. You need a recording of various frequencies, but its possible to adjust a cartridge frequency response to pretty flat, or to something else you might want.

[mark]

About the question -- How much phono cartridge separation is enough -- it occurs to me we have at least a partial answer by comparing channel separation in digital formats. A conventional CD player for example has better than 90dB channel separation -- orders of magnitude better than the best phono cartridge in the world (whatever that is!). Yet people don't tend to be blown away by the stereo imaging of CDs, despite the astounding channel separation. So there is clearly some upper limit for phono cartridge channel separation, beyond which stereo imaging is not improved. I'm guessing something less than 30dB is that limit, but someone must have researched this in the past!

[speakertom]

Jan 15, 2021 12:52:00 GMT -5 mark said:

About the question -- How much phono cartridge separation is enough -- it occurs to me we have at least a partial answer by comparing channel separation in digital formats. A conventional CD player for example has better than 90dB channel separation -- orders of magnitude better than the best phono cartridge in the world (whatever that is!). Yet people don't tend to be blown away by the stereo imaging of CDs, despite the astounding channel separation. So there is clearly some upper limit for phono cartridge channel separation, beyond which stereo imaging is not improved. I'm guessing something less than 30dB is that limit, but someone must have researched this in the past!

Unless you are using headphones, high numbers of channel separation get lost by the crosstalk from speakers and room effects.  I have heard that 10-15 dB is more than adequate in the room.  You also have to take into account the mike setup and post processing that occur that can also limit separation.   The only good thing that I can see about the high separation figures for digital is that it does not make things worse in the separation area.

[mark]

Jan 15, 2021 14:04:10 GMT -5 speakertom said:

Jan 15, 2021 12:52:00 GMT -5 mark said:

About the question -- How much phono cartridge separation is enough -- it occurs to me we have at least a partial answer by comparing channel separation in digital formats. A conventional CD player for example has better than 90dB channel separation -- orders of magnitude better than the best phono cartridge in the world (whatever that is!). Yet people don't tend to be blown away by the stereo imaging of CDs, despite the astounding channel separation. So there is clearly some upper limit for phono cartridge channel separation, beyond which stereo imaging is not improved. I'm guessing something less than 30dB is that limit, but someone must have researched this in the past!

Unless you are using headphones, high numbers of channel separation get lost by the crosstalk from speakers and room effects.  I have heard that 10-15 dB is more than adequate in the room.  You also have to take into account the mike setup and post processing that occur that can also limit separation.   The only good thing that I can see about the high separation figures for digital is that it does not make things worse in the separation area.

I think you are probably correct! 

I recall now my old Dynaco PAS 3 preamp I had in the early 1970s had a "blend" switch that actually allowed blending two stereo channels, that is, deliberately lowering channel separation by some fixed amount.  As I recall it was occasionally useful for some recordings to fill an apparent sound gap between the two speakers.

[larrys]

Nov 29, 2020 19:39:11 GMT -5 Chris said:

After the very insightful meeting with Peter Ledermann, I was motivated to take a more in depth look at my cartridge azimuth. I knew that my Parks Audio Puffin had a nifty way to precisely measure and adjust cartridge azimuth so I printed out the instructions.

First up was my Soundsmith Otello cartridge mounted in a Jelcon 370H arm on my rebuilt SRM Tech Azure Rega turntable.

Following the instructions, using 1kHz left and right tones (Ortofon Test Record), I measured my beginning azimuth channel separation numbers:

Left 31.2 db
Right 31.5 db

After a lot of back and forth tweaking the headshell, I achieved the following results.

Left 35.8 db
Right 35.8 db

That makes a channel separation improvement of:

Left 4.5 db
Right 4.3 db

A pretty good result.

Next up is my very new Soundsmith Aida II mounted in a VPI 3D pivot tonearm on a VPI Classic 2 turntable.

Starting numbers were:

Left 25.9 db
Right 20 db

End numbers are:

Left 36.2 db
Right 32.7 db

For a net gain of:

Left 10.3 db
Right 12.7 db

Wow, that's a significant improvement. I'm not sure why there is a 3.5 db channel difference? I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

The lesson for me is "eyeballing" azimuth does not work with any accuracy. You need some measurement tool to dial this in.

The fact that the Puffin DSP Phono preamp can do this among its two dozen other adjustments just reinforces what an incredible value it is for $500.

I listened to several of my test tracks and was very happy with the sound. One track I use is the "Badia" track on Weather Report's Tale Spinnin' record. I have an original copy that has the mark "TML" in the dead wax. This indicates that this record was mastered by the great Doug Sax at The Mastaring Lab. The sound is incredible. The "Badia" track has a wide and deep soundstage with lots of percussive effects hard panned left and right. It was pretty stunning after the azimuth alignment.

I'd be interested in other people's experiences with azimuth adjustments.

When playing the pink noise bands on the Ultimate Analog Test record the dB value jumps around considerably (this is with a Hana ML on a VPI Prime/JMW 10.5 unipivot with the dual pivot attachment).  Does it not do that using the Ortofon test record?  And, if it does, how do you come up with a value for either the baseline or the improvement?

[sailor]

I follow Peter Ledermann's directions on his web site. He has a series of video's on cartridge set up

[larrys]

Jan 18, 2021 16:05:55 GMT -5 sailor said:

I follow Peter Ledermann's directions on his web site. He has a series of video's on cartridge set up

I have been using Peter’s instructions for many years.  In terms of azimuth settings, I haven’t been able to get a significant improvement over his methods with either a Fozgometer or the Puffin.

[sailor]

Nail on the head Larry
Your ears and your head (and some heart too) are the only instruments ones needs. Oh, plus patience
Tricks and tools will get you closer faster, but in the end it’s your ears that matter.
Like cooking, “one seasons to taste”