Hi Val the stylus tip is to be 90 degrees from the bottom of the groove so the sides of the stylus can be 45 degrees left and right now 90 degrees to each magnet's usual orientation inside the cart. Like VTA and VTF that affect each other because of cantilever and suspension flexure on the vertical plane, azimuth and anti-skate work together on the horizontal plane because of the same flexure or compliance. The lower the compliance either way the more sensitive in my experience to distortion. Pumapalag kasi. The reason our Zyx Airys are less finicky with regards to azimuth than the
Koetsu because of the Zyx's engineered in higher lateral compliance and also why the XV-1t is less finicky with VTA and VTF with the
Koetsu as well. This also connects the dots to low compliance being better with high effective mass arms. The higher the effective mass, the more compliant the cart becomes. One can tho do the strange match up of a high compliance cart with a high effective mass arm and most probably end up with a dancing arm wand.
This brings an important point into play. Just as VTA and VTF can be used to counteract or complement each other in affecting stylus rake angle, same goes for azimuth and antiskate. While azimuth deals mainly with channel separation (focus) and antiskate with signal level (stage position), they do a little of the other too
It's like speaker position is the azimuth (focus/toe-in) and antiskate is speaker distance (front or back/ output level at listening position).
At this point we are really splitting hairs. Many arm cart combos perform beautifully without obsessive compulsive tweakery. The greater majority do not even have easy azimuth adjustment mechanisms while others do not provide for anti-skate. Many don't have VTA mechanisms either. The only constant seems to be counterweights.
Here is where I will begin to just theorize. I think the reason most very good arms don't come fully equipped is that the greatest distortions/distractions come from cart alignment (which all goes back to proper installation of the arm at the correct spindle and pivot distance) and mistracking issues from non-optimal tracking force. Much of the much less serious deleterious effects of non gross azimuth and antiskate errors can be offset by speaker placement, acoustic damping, active eq or even a balance control. That's why I think of getting these factors right icing on the cake. In a system that has been painstakingly tweaked to already have as much channel separation and balance as humanly possible (like Jon I rely on digital for this except I use full range pink noise instead of test tracks), hitting the magic spot just brings that eureka moment like that experienced by Tito Mandy
My favorite example is Jadis' system and room. No azimuth control on the ET2, finicky Koetsus yet already with lots of icing.....one of the best imaging systems I have ever heard and one of the best scaled in terms of realistic image size to boot. I theorize that gimbal arms and linear trackers have higher lateral effective mass than my unipivot and that might explain why the best I've ever heard
Koetsu carts or carts like SPUs for that matter are with fixed bearing arms and Phil's ET2 (only linear tracker I've heard with a
Koetsu). End of theorizing
A lot has been put on getting the image centered maybe because by habit we are taught that it is an audiophile must. The magic for stereo to me however is the after effect of setting up the system phase correct. `Chances are ones the center ball of pink noise is nice round and solid, definition of events on the extreme boundaries of the soundstage will be pretty good too. But with analog it is when everything clicks from source to room that you go past stereo and enter the realm of the walk in soundstage! Yeah!!!!!!!!!!