I wanted to give a shout out to Wayner for a great tool he has for those looking for a reasonably priced and comprehensive phono cartridge alignment toolset.
I recently purchased a new Grado Reference Sonata 1 (hi-output) cartridge for use on my venerable Harman Kardon HK720 turntable (it predates their T20-T60) line. Yes I have relocated the powersupply outside of the chassis.
I had some alignment protractors downloaded from vinylengine and they got me into the ballpark, but I wanted to really dial it in. I contacted Wayner with some questions, he promptly responded, and the order was placed. He has several versions of the kit depending on what one needs.
The CAT-TWO showed me I *was* pretty close - but with cartridge alignment close is not good enough. Wayner provides a CD with pix of the various steps and even a video clip of the skating set up and when I did have a question, his response was incredibly swift and helpful.
The biggest eye opener was how far out of whack the anti-skating scale was. With his CAT-TWO I learned my scale needed to be set at 3 for a VTF of 1.5.
Once done, it was obvious I had gained some sonic improvement. The Grado Reference Sonata is a wonderful cart. I'd been using their ZT+ for a long time and obviously this is a big step up. Simply amazing. I have never heard the Grado Gold (1) with or without the Longhorn mod so am of no use whatsover in rendering a comparative opinion with that cart. btw, my phono preamp is the Hagerman Bugle which I built with his plans and PC cards.
Again, I just wanted to tip my hat to Wayner for a great and fairly priced tool that should be considered by anyone looking at alignment tools.
Greg
