Using Wally Tools

[J.R. Boisclair]

Hello everyone. If you were waiting for me to chime in, sorry for the wait. If you were hoping I would not, well...sorry for that too!

@mtemur is correct that the shim cannot correct for zenith error. It corrects for THREE parameters: azimuth, SRA and VTA (with the latter two being a balance of the goals for each). However, @Bonesy Jonesy is correct that I do correct for zenith error when doing a Kuzma Pre-Mount service. This is simply a rotational adjustment in the headshell, guided by the WallyZenith as the fiducial where the alignment target is sensitive not only to the correction of zenith error but also any azimuth correction built into the corrective shim (which causes a visual error approximating horizontal cantilever alignment and must, therefore, be calculated to avoid this being part of the rotational correction). The description on my webpage perhaps suggests that the zenith correction comes from the corrective shim. It does not and it could use some wordsmithing to correct any misunderstandings.

I invite mtemur to share thoughts on how the WAM Engineering approach is "far-fetched". (Please forgive me if I have mis-read your comment, mtemur.) While I certainly don't know everything about dynamic behavior of a cartridge and its tonearm (and hold the "unknown unknown" in great respect as I am always looking for it), I do surround myself with three seasoned engineers on the "WallyTeam" who are far more skilled than I am with the scientific enterprise. To them, all must be proven in a multiplicity of repeatable methods before declaring any particular approach or tool as being truly effective and correct. Perhaps mtemer holds a key to something we do not completely understand, so I'd love to hear honest feedback that comes from a "good place".

Yes, I do have an adapter for use of the WallyScope on the Dynolite stand. I use it on my lab bench now because it is a bit faster and slightly more stable when the compliant feet are removed. I am considering offering the WallyScope in both versions for those willing to invest in the Dynolite equipment. For those who want the part and already own the WallyScope, I will charge only $175. Reach out to me directly if you'd like that.

I continue to say that the WallySkater is my most important tool. It has corrected more issues than any other. The role of a SYMMETRICALLY COMPRESSED DAMPER is very poorly studied and understood in audiophile circles. If you have mistracking or sibilance (usually a form of mistracking) it is usually always fixed by measuring the tonearm's horizontal torque forces and its stiction. Even if you don't have those issues but you otherwise don't know whether the damper is symmetrically compressed, doing the measuring work can often result in greater overall sense of musicality and "openness" to the musical presentation. I know Bonesy Jonesy has experienced this for himself.

Lastly, I invite WallyScope owners to send me photos for critique. I am very surprised that more WallyScope owners don't reach out to me to ask for a corrective shim. Why? The average SRA correction I've measured in the hundreds of samples in my dataset (from my cartridge analysis service) is over 3 degrees. The average VTA correction is over 6 degrees. Even if your tonearm could offer 3 degrees of change from level, I would strongly recommend against it as a tonearm out of level begins to have new vector forces about the pivot area that change its behavior. When using a motor as sensitive as the one we have in our cartridges, these changes become quite audible. WHY they are audible isn't clearly understood but will be a subject of further study once we are done with our research on zenith error (which is also turning into an analysis of lacquer cutting error to some degree).

 

[mtemur]

Another problem area is Kuzma service itself. When you send a Kuzma headshel (as @rDin and @Bonesy Jonesy noted and I already known it before) to Wally, they send it back as cartridge installed and aligned on the headshell. Pre aligned for correct azimuth, SRA and even zenith can be acceptable but pre aligned for overhang is pure nonsense. Because you can NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER perfectly set two tonearms at the same pivot to spindle distance which is paramount for correct overhang. Especially the ones with tonearm towers. The Kuzma arm at Wally will definitely have different P2S distance than customer's Kuzma arm. If anybody says otherwise than he/she doesn't care about precision which Wally service is all about and small details lead to perfect setup. So, pre installed cartridge service for Kuzma tonearms shouldn't be used and shouldn't exist in the first place.

Sorry @J.R. Boisclair for jumping another topic other than zenith but I'll come to the far-fetched part later. BTW I don't know everything about cartridge behavior but reading, trying and failing keep me learning. I learn a lot from this forum also.

 

[Bonesy Jonesy]

Hello everyone. If you were waiting for me to chime in, sorry for the wait. If you were hoping I would not, well...sorry for that too!

@mtemur is correct that the shim cannot correct for zenith error. It corrects for THREE parameters: azimuth, SRA and VTA (with the latter two being a balance of the goals for each). However, @Bonesy Jonesy is correct that I do correct for zenith error when doing a Kuzma Pre-Mount service. This is simply a rotational adjustment in the headshell, guided by the WallyZenith as the fiducial where the alignment target is sensitive not only to the correction of zenith error but also any azimuth correction built into the corrective shim (which causes a visual error approximating horizontal cantilever alignment and must, therefore, be calculated to avoid this being part of the rotational correction). The description on my webpage perhaps suggests that the zenith correction comes from the corrective shim. It does not and it could use some wordsmithing to correct any misunderstandings.

I invite mtemur to share thoughts on how the WAM Engineering approach is "far-fetched". (Please forgive me if I have mis-read your comment, mtemur.) While I certainly don't know everything about dynamic behavior of a cartridge and its tonearm (and hold the "unknown unknown" in great respect as I am always looking for it), I do surround myself with three seasoned engineers on the "WallyTeam" who are far more skilled than I am with the scientific enterprise. To them, all must be proven in a multiplicity of repeatable methods before declaring any particular approach or tool as being truly effective and correct. Perhaps mtemer holds a key to something we do not completely understand, so I'd love to hear honest feedback that comes from a "good place".

Yes, I do have an adapter for use of the WallyScope on the Dynolite stand. I use it on my lab bench now because it is a bit faster and slightly more stable when the compliant feet are removed. I am considering offering the WallyScope in both versions for those willing to invest in the Dynolite equipment. For those who want the part and already own the WallyScope, I will charge only $175. Reach out to me directly if you'd like that.

I continue to say that the WallySkater is my most important tool. It has corrected more issues than any other. The role of a SYMMETRICALLY COMPRESSED DAMPER is very poorly studied and understood in audiophile circles. If you have mistracking or sibilance (usually a form of mistracking) it is usually always fixed by measuring the tonearm's horizontal torque forces and its stiction. Even if you don't have those issues but you otherwise don't know whether the damper is symmetrically compressed, doing the measuring work can often result in greater overall sense of musicality and "openness" to the musical presentation. I know Bonesy Jonesy has experienced this for himself.

Lastly, I invite WallyScope owners to send me photos for critique. I am very surprised that more WallyScope owners don't reach out to me to ask for a corrective shim. Why? The average SRA correction I've measured in the hundreds of samples in my dataset (from my cartridge analysis service) is over 3 degrees. The average VTA correction is over 6 degrees. Even if your tonearm could offer 3 degrees of change from level, I would strongly recommend against it as a tonearm out of level begins to have new vector forces about the pivot area that change its behavior. When using a motor as sensitive as the one we have in our cartridges, these changes become quite audible. WHY they are audible isn't clearly understood but will be a subject of further study once we are done with our research on zenith error (which is also turning into an analysis of lacquer cutting error to some degree).

Hi J.R,
Thank you so very much for your very informative post. Very much appreciated.

I will be in contact with you shortly regarding purchasing the adaptor from you / Wally Tools for mounting the Wally Scope direct to a Dinolite RX-10-A Stand.

 

[mtemur]

@mtemur is correct that the shim cannot correct for zenith error.

Thank you for your response.

 

[Bonesy Jonesy]

Another problem area is Kuzma service itself. When you send a Kuzma headshel (as @rDin and @Bonesy Jonesy noted and I already known it before) to Wally, they send it back as cartridge installed and aligned on the headshell. Pre aligned for correct azimuth, SRA and even zenith can be acceptable but pre aligned for overhang is pure nonsense. Because you can NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER perfectly set two tonearms at the same pivot to spindle distance which is paramount for correct overhang. Especially the ones with tonearm towers. The Kuzma arm at Wally will definitely have different P2S distance than customer's Kuzma arm. If anybody says otherwise than he/she doesn't care about precision which Wally service is all about and small details lead to perfect setup. So, pre installed cartridge service for Kuzma tonearms shouldn't be used and shouldn't exist in the first place.

Sorry @J.R. Boisclair for jumping another topic other than zenith but I'll come to the far-fetched part later. BTW I don't know everything about cartridge behavior but reading, trying and failing keep me learning. I learn a lot from this forum also.

Why would there be differences in P2S distances between a Kuzma tonearm and TT set-up at Wally Tools and one set-up on a customers TT set-up when both Kuzma tonearms are identical and the recommended PS2 value is a definitive distance value (as given by Kuzma) for that specific tonearm ?

 

[J.R. Boisclair]

Another problem area is Kuzma service itself. When you send a Kuzma headshel (as @rDin and @Bonesy Jonesy noted and I already known it before) to Wally, they send it back as cartridge installed and aligned on the headshell. Pre aligned for correct azimuth, SRA and even zenith can be acceptable but pre aligned for overhang is pure nonsense. Because you can NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER perfectly set two tonearms at the same pivot to spindle distance which is paramount for correct overhang. Especially the ones with tonearm towers. The Kuzma arm at Wally will definitely have different P2S distance than customer's Kuzma arm. If anybody says otherwise than he/she doesn't care about precision which Wally service is all about and small details lead to perfect setup. So, pre installed cartridge service for Kuzma tonearms shouldn't be used and shouldn't exist in the first place.

Sorry @J.R. Boisclair for jumping another topic other than zenith but I'll come to the far-fetched part later. BTW I don't know everything about cartridge behavior but reading, trying and failing keep me learning. I learn a lot from this forum also.

@mtemur, you are correct that the client P2S must agree with my lab arm P2S dimension. To that end, they are instructed to use the WallyTractor's pivot to spindle ruler to get it spot on. I am just fine with ~ +/- 0.2mm of error on this. Why? Because overhang is set solely as a function to then determine cantilever alignment at the null points. So, what would the cantilever's horizontal angular error be if overhang were off by 0.2mm? On a 9" arm the answer is about 0.09 degrees at the outer null and 0.17 degrees on the inner null. It is less than that with longer arms. Since a highly experienced alignment professional has about 0.5 degrees of accuracy with regards to cantilever alignment (yes, we tested this and it was TEDIOUS but needed to be done for our studies), I would not worry about doing better than this level of accuracy.

For what it is worth, I cannot FEEL a 0.5 degree change in horizontal cantilever alignment (zenith correction) when doing the task. However, because I have references that are ~20mm away from the pivot point, I can SEE them. This may be another tool for the future: a way to visualize cartridge rotation using tight discretization as a means to not go bonkers when trying to make tiny changes.

 

[mtemur]

Why would there be differences in P2S distances between a Kuzma tonearm and TT set-up at Wally Tools and one set-up on a customers TT set-up when both Kuzma tonearms are identical and the recommended PS2 value is a definitive distance value (as given by Kuzma) for that specific tonearm ?

Because you can not position your tonearm at identical P2S distance practically. There will always be minor errors at best. Especially when you consider two tonearms need to be positioned precisely it becomes impossible. That's why it's not ideal to set overhang on a tonearm and use it on another. On the other hand when you use a protractor it compensates for P2S distance errors.

 

[J.R. Boisclair]

As a general comment: I don't really care for the term "zenith" either. "Yaw" would be better. Zenith is purely the perspective from which angular deviation of the contact edges of the stylus can be seen relative to the centerline of the cantilever. It is a term Wally used many years ago and seems to have stuck once published on analog planet.

In our scientific paper on zenith error, we have had to define terms VERY carefully. There are actually six different definitions that involve the term "zenith" that describe slightly different perspectives of the error that can occur during playback or cutting. You needn't familiarize yourself with all of them unless you care to do a peer review of our paper once it is available.

 

[mtemur]

@mtemur, you are correct that the client P2S must agree with my lab arm P2S dimension. To that end, they are instructed to use the WallyTractor's pivot to spindle ruler to get it spot on. I am just fine with ~ +/- 0.2mm of error on this. Why? Because overhang is set solely as a function to then determine cantilever alignment at the null points. So, what would the cantilever's horizontal angular error be if overhang were off by 0.2mm? On a 9" arm the answer is about 0.09 degrees at the outer null and 0.17 degrees on the inner null. It is less than that with longer arms. Since a highly experienced alignment professional has about 0.5 degrees of accuracy with regards to cantilever alignment (yes, we tested this and it was TEDIOUS but needed to be done for our studies), I would not worry about doing better than this level of accuracy.

For what it is worth, I cannot FEEL a 0.5 degree change in horizontal cantilever alignment (zenith correction) when doing the task. However, because I have references that are ~20mm away from the pivot point, I can SEE them. This may be another tool for the future: a way to visualize cartridge rotation using tight discretization as a means to not go bonkers when trying to make tiny changes.

If we're going to easily ignore those important areas and regard them as small errors what is the use of precision that wally offers?

On the other hand maybe you can set P2S distance within + - 0.2mm but not everybody can. Additionally setting P2S distance precisely with a ruler, Feickert tool or Smartractor is not possible due to parallax errors and I don't think it is any different with ruler offered by Wally.

 

[Bonesy Jonesy]

Because you can not position your tonearm at identical P2S distance practically. There will always be minor errors at best. Especially when you consider two tonearms need to be positioned precisely it becomes impossible. That's why it's not ideal to set overhang on a tonearm and use it on another. On the other hand when you use a protractor it compensates for P2S distance errors.

I was assuming with my reply to your post on PS2 that the customer would (and should) be using a proprietary and reasonably accurate tool to measure this i.e. the rule that comes with the Wally Tractor Universal V2.01 or the Acoustical Systems The SMARTractor Phono Alignment Tool for instance !

 

[J.R. Boisclair]

If we're going to easily ignore those important areas and regard them as small errors what is the use of precision that wally offers?

On the other hand maybe you can set P2S distance within + - 0.2mm but not everybody can. Additionally setting P2S distance precisely with a ruler, Feickert tool or Smartractor is not possible due to parallax errors and I don't think it is any different with ruler offered by Wally.

The WallyTractor P2S ruler avoids most of the stacked tolerance errors of the "beam style" protractors like those you mention. The laser printed markings on the ruler are held directly against the pivot housing of the tonearm so there is no parallax error there as long as you are viewing it from directly above the pivot point.

As long as my clients are comfortable with calling out dimensions in tenths, they seem quite content to call them out to me in tenths of a millimeter when taking the P2S measurement. Good vision helps, for sure!

 

[mtemur]

I was assuming with my reply to your post on PS2 that the customer would (and should) be using a proprietary and reasonably accurate tool to measure this i.e. the rule that comes with the Wally Tractor Universal V2.01 or the Acoustical Systems The SMARTractor Phono Alignment Tool for instance !

You can use any tool you want. The P2S setting tool's accuracy is not important here, (protractor) overhang setting tool's precision is important. More importantly you should set overhang by yourself while cartridge is installed on your tonearm not by anybody else on another tonearm even if he is @J.R. Boisclair and better than anybody else.

 

[J.R. Boisclair]

You can use any tool you want. The P2S setting tool's accuracy is not important here, (protractor) overhang setting tool's precision is important. More importantly you should set overhang by yourself while cartridge is installed on your tonearm not by anybody else on another tonearm even if he is @J.R. Boisclair and better than anybody else.

That is certainly not a claim I would make of myself, @mtemur, but I appreciate the thought.

For the Kuzma Pre-Mount service, my client's are trusting that I am nailing all the parameters with great accuracy. For those that prefer not to trust my accuracy, that is just fine with me. I've messed stuff up more than once and I'm sure I haven't seen the last time!

 

[mtemur]

That is certainly not a claim I would make of myself, @mtemur, but I appreciate the thought.

For the Kuzma Pre-Mount service, my client's are trusting that I am nailing all the parameters with great accuracy. For those that prefer not to trust my accuracy, that is just fine with me. I've messed stuff up more than once and I'm sure I haven't seen the last time!

I'm sure you're nailing all the parameters correctly, I trust your accuracy but I don't trust a regular Joe's accuracy. That is my point and that is the problem with pre installed cartridges and parameters.

 

[Bonesy Jonesy]

I'm sure you're nailing all the parameters correctly, I trust your accuracy but I don't trust a regular Joe's accuracy. That is my point and that is the problem with pre installed cartridges and parameters.

Well if the so called 'regular Joe' cannot be trusted with obtaining the correct PS2 for his tonearm, then spare the thought if 'regular Joe' was also let loose on also installing and setting up their own cartridge by themselves.
At least if 'regular Joe' sent their cartridge and ideally their Kuzma head shell (if they have a Kuzma arm of course!) to Wally Tools a lot of the prospective errors can be eliminated / heavily reduced for the very important cartridge parameters as opposed to installing and setting up the cartridge to the head shell themselves !

 

[mtemur]

Well if the so called 'regular Joe' cannot be trusted with obtaining the correct PS2 for his tonearm, then spare the thought if 'regular Joe' was also let loose on also installing and setting up their own cartridge by themselves.
At least if 'regular Joe' sent their cartridge and ideally their Kuzma head shell (if they have a Kuzma arm of course!) to Wally Tools a lot of the prospective errors can be eliminated / heavily reduced for the very important cartridge parameters as opposed to installing and setting up the cartridge to the head shell themselves !

First of all regular Joe wasn't meant for you or anybody else. It's just a term and I used it to point out that it should be foolproof, you should consider the worst when you offer a service. Wally's Kuzma service in this case. If I offended you I apologize.

I believe most of the members of this forum are not regular Joes and they can easily install a cartridge and set parameters correctly but positioning a tonearm to correct P2S distance is almost impossible for all of us. I explained it on my prior posts. Because of that reason pre installed cartridge and parameters prevent even an experienced member to reach precision offered by Wally service. It is mandatory to match exact P2S distance of the tonearm at Wally Lab in order to fully benefit of it.

 

[J.R. Boisclair]

Bonesy,

What 'audio industry recommended values' are you using? 92° ?

I've found the most useful of all the Wally Tools is the Wally Reference. It enables getting the botom of the headshell near-perfectly horizontal to the record surface, front-to-back and side-to-side.

Hello @tima,

Yours is a very good question. The strange thing is that there are no universally accepted targets for SRA and VTA in cartridge making. This is a missed opportunity, IMO, because we know the limits of cutting stylus angle and vertical modulation angle of the torque tube on most cutterheads. It is very easy to model out using a variety of methods (mathematical, computative analyses such as finite element analysis or VARIABLE CONTROLLED listening - which is almost never done properly) to prove what is the mechanical and audible "cost" of having a fine line playback stylus be at a different angles from the cutting angles.

Thankfully, playback error on SRA and VTA is quite forgiving (unlike azimuth and zenith) so we can be quite wrong and it will still sound "fine". However, if you were to hear it "spot on" you would in no way want to go back to where you were previously, no matter how wonky your cartridge looked on the headshell.

It is quite true that engineers can cut at differing rake angles and vertical modulation angles ("VMA"). However, we know the RANGE within which they work and we know a little something about lacquer springback (though not NEARLY enough) and therefore we know how to aim at the mean of their target angles which then gets us to be in the statistical best position to get the most performance out of all records.

Quick note on lacquer springback: just because the engineer cuts at one angle for the rake or VMA, it does not mean that is the best playback angle. This effect is poorly studied, but it is in our crosshairs for future research.

The one parameter that tends to be VERY far off on cutting versus playback is VMA versus VTA. There are two VERY BAD reasons for this that I go into in my seminar. See around 40:45 here

If you don't know why VTA is important versus SRA, see from timestamp 39:05

I hope this is helpful.

 

[Bonesy Jonesy]

First, I want to acknowledge the impressive bodies of effort/work by each contributor of this thread. I have been down the Dinolite path myself and due to its and my own issues have, after several iterations, abandoned the method.

My current approach, having used it once and being proferred here as an alternate method, is to send a cartridge to J.R. and have him create the shims and statistics that allow me to use his after-analysis tools to mount the cartridge and then use my ears to fine tune via listening. I understand my approach may be open to criticism for any number of reasons including laziness, expense, etc and I am willing to listen to any critique.

Full disclosure requires me to disclose that this is primarily a personal issue. I have essential tremors and their unpredictable nature give me pause when dealing with some of the steps required for mounting cartridges. I can only do so much at this point, so I'm willing to pay for the luxury of being able to avoid the most intricate/delicate, repetitive cartridge mounting/adjusting steps in favor of using the Wally tools necessary once the cartridge has been analyzed by J.R. and company. Even then, several of the fine, calm hand motor skills required are challenging and frightening when the prospect of trashing a multi-thousand dollar cartridge hangs in the balance.

Hi 'allvinyl',
I believe 100% that your current approach is the best approach not only for your current personal issues but currently the best method for most people, particularly those people who have very expensive cartridges.

 

[Bonesy Jonesy]

I wonder how large a difference in the SRA needs to be before it is perceptible. Given the range of SRA of a cutter head is 3 degrees (91-94), a fixed SRA of 92 will be out by up to 2 degrees. If one uses a tonearm with an Leff of 300mm, a 1 degree change is 5.5mm in height, which is orders of magnitude greater than the difference in thickness between a 120g and a 200g LP. If it is true that one can hear the difference between LPs of different thickness, we are then talking about a difference of a fraction of a degree. In that case, the variability of the SRA of cutter heads used to cut different LPs will make the whole exercise moot.

I personally don't believe people can hear a difference to music being played just on differences for different record thicknesses alone !

One of the main reasons, as you mention 'adrianywu' is the differences in the thicknesses of records only makes a small difference to the SRA (as well as small changes to VTA and VTF) which I doubt is audible to most if not all people!

I believe, this subject on record thickness differences and changing tonearm height etc. has also been researched and written by Wally Tools. From my understanding, the conclusion Wally Tools basically came to was that it is not worth the hassle to change the tonearm height every time you play a different thickness of record in order to gain a respectable increase in musical performance from your hifi system that most people could hear.

 

[J.R. Boisclair]

I personally don't believe people can hear a difference to music being played just on differences for different record thicknesses alone !

One of the main reasons, as you mention 'adrianywu' is the differences in the thicknesses of records only makes a small difference to the SRA (as well as small changes to VTA and VTF) which I doubt is audible to most if not all people!

I believe, this subject on record thickness differences and changing tonearm height etc. has also been researched and written by Wally Tools. From my understanding, the conclusion Wally Tools basically came to was that it is not worth the hassle to change the tonearm height every time you play a different thickness of record in order to gain a respectable increase in musical performance from your hifi system that most people could hear.

It is true that we have not yet found a good reason to believe a 1-2mm change in arm height changes mechanical distortion for SRA or VTA within the limits of audibility, but our work on this is very young. I am much more inclined to believe that what people are predominantly hearing when they change tonearm height to match record thickness is changes in VTF and resultant asymmetric damper compression. They could also be hearing changes in vector forces about the tonearm pivots and, in many cases, changes in azimuth.

On my arm, the VTF will certainly change between a 140gm record and 200gm because the center of gravity is not coincident with the horizontal bearing. I don't bother adjusting for it to eliminate that change. Not doing so is simply a matter of priorities. This may come as a surprise to some of you, but I HATE to fuss with my turntable. I like to set it and forget it. I check it once every couple months on a WallySkater and a calibrated VTF scale. That's it.