WallyZenith

years ago, we were instructed to align our cartridge body at the protractor null points to achieve ideal alignment. Later, Wally Malewicz gave us the original WallyTractor and a way to improve upon this by aligning the cantilever at the null points while also removing parallax error.

​However, we haven't had a way to align that which REALLY matters when setting your stylus/cantilever assembly for ideal horizontal alignment: the contact facets of the stylus that read the groove walls. 

​Your cartridge is in perfect alignment on the horizontal plane when a line drawn between the two contact facets form a straight line pointing at the center of the record. This straight line SHOULD be perfectly perpendicular to the cantilever - which is MUCH easier for us to see and therefore align for optimum playback quality.  

​However, most all high-end cartridge manufacturers work with +/-5 degrees of tolerance with their stylus mount accuracy - though we have seen as much as 17.5 degrees off of perpendicularity with the cantilever. This means that even though you aligned your cantilever perfectly at the null points, your stylus could be badly out of alignment - completely nullifying your best efforts to achieve minimum tracing distortion.