Home Vinyl Asylum

Welcome Licorice Pizza (LP) lovers! Setup guides and Vinyl FAQ.

RE: Technics SL-1200 Alignment

Thanks! My daughter enjoyed her Kiwi experience very much. She was there for a year. She picked apples and worked at a ski resort. She even went sky diving in New Zealand. She also visited Australia for about six months and spent a couple of months living on a beach in Fiji. This was years ago just after she graduated from college.

Anyway getting back to Stevenson! I don't believe the SME 309 and 310 are Stevenson. The story I heard was that some people complained about inner groove distortion with the SME IV and V so SME decided to change the modulated groove envelope to move the inner null-point slightly closer to the spindle. Instead of using 146.05-mm for the outermost groove they rounded it off to 146-mm and in order to move the inner null-point inward slightly, they reduced the innermost modulated groove from 60.325-mm to 58-mm. Then they applied Lofgren A, which resulted in alignment null-points of 63.6-mm and 119.5-mm as shown in the following graph. As you can see, there are no rounding errors whatsoever for any of the SME specified tonearm parameters. However, the null-points of 63.6-mm and 119.5-mm are not Stevenson null-points as depicted in your table. They might be close, but SME doesn't make mistakes. If the SME had chosen Stevenson null-points, they would be exact and not just close. Both the 309 and 310 use Lofgren "A" alignments.


.

The same applies to the SME 310:


.

With respect to the SME Series II and Series III, I also have problems understanding how they could be Stevenson. The owner's manual for the SME III says its effective length is 229-mm and its mounting distance is 215.4-mm, but no offset angle is given. No matter! There is no offset angle that will produce Stevenson null-points from those specifications. The same situation applies to the SME Series II.

Perhaps I'm missing the boat on the SME II and III, but I can't find any numbers that point to Stevenson. If you have the correct parameters for effective length, pivot-to-spindle, and offset angle for these SME tonearms that will yield any of the Stevenson null-points from your table, please help me. I'm not trying to obstinate; I just can't make the SME numbers work.

One tonearm that I believe might be Stevenson is the Dynavector 507. Its graph is below. Tell me what you think.

Thanks,
John Elison






This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Sonic Craft  


Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups

FAQ

Post a Message!

Forgot Password?
Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
  Remember my Moniker & Password  (What's this?)    Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:
Message:   (Posts are subject to Content Rules)
Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:  Automagically notify you when someone responds.