At least with a proper alignment you get what you pay for...
Absoultely. And this is not such an easy task mainly because it's so difficult to see what you're doing. I'm working on this for myself right now. I use sighting aids, and something happened to the tools that I made for this a while back. I think that I just used them once too often and they broke.
So, I'm making a new set of alignment tools and this, in itself, has been a slog. I've covered this in my book with my method for aligning Stanton and Pickering cartridges, and decided that I will add more information in the free update that's going out to people who have already purchased my
Handbook.
Alignment won't be correct if the aligner cannot see what he is doing! When you consider the geometry vs. the size of the high-frequency groove wiggles, the mind may begin to be boggled by wonder and contradicitions. And I have found that most cartridges have not been made to facilitate this procedure. So, I had to come up with a different way to perform the task. And, in fact, different alignment tools for different cartridges.
I'm not going to say that my own method is better than the standard ones. I just think that it's more hopeful. Unfortunately, the only way to do this with the greatest perfection is by observing the ellipsed diamond edges relative to a straight line out from the spindle's center point. And exactly how are we going to go about carrying out this work? And with a radial arm, you'll only get this dead-on at two points along the arm's arc. Bummer.
Hans, I was surprised to see you mention a Stanton 500 in this thread about these refined, lofty products! This series is just not in the same league. Yet, the 500s (which date from the early 60s and are still being made) are enjoyable cartridges. In a lower-end product of this type, we can't expect the same degree of quality control and stylus finish as we can obtain with more expensive products. Yet, I've found that the cartridge bodies have tended to be quite decent and the original styli attain good polish simply through use.
Someone a bit earlier mentioned that he has enjoyed one of the earliest Empire cartridges. We have had our devotees to the Shure M3 and very early Ortofons (and I'm probably leaving out one or two others). What's at play here is that by comparison with the newer and higher-technology cartridges (and especially their styli), these old cartridges, in comparison, deliver a restricted frequency range (regardless of Empire's wild claims). When we restrict this range, we also limit unwanted noise that's often outside the bandwidth of the musical information. Thus, limiting the range can produce very substantial musical benefits when playing older records, records that are damaged, and other real-world records.
Most records are not perfect. I have my own outstanding audiophile-grade high-performance cartridges, too. But I've been quite fascinated by this musical-audio reality of "less is more" since I started taking the concept seriously. Most of the records of music that I want to listen to are not perfect. Reproducing those rare perfect recordings with excellence is fairly easy. It's all the other ones, the ones with the great performances, that present the real challenges. For music is what it's really about.
