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How or why would anyone design an arm for a specific

alignment. With enought built in adjustments (ofset angle, effective length and pivot distance) you can align the arm-cart combination to any alignment you want. I need to go to the local library for a copy of Baerwald's original paper. Does anyone have the references for the Stephenson andLoefgren papers. From what I read Baerwald tried to minimise the % tracking distortion curve. It is not intuitively obviouls to me that is best. It will be interesting to read his paper.


I found this on the web but did not send myself the reference, could have been from the Vinyl Engine.

"A 1941 paper in the /Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers/ by the American engineer H. G. Baerwald worked out the conditions for optimal conventional tonearm design; one important thing to note is that it needs to be taken into account that the effects of tracking error are more serious for the inner grooves of the record, since the undulations in the groove representing the sound waves are closer together there. One approximation that can be used is to weight tracking error by the reciprocal of distance from the spindle.

An earlier paper by Erik Löfgren, cited in Baerwald's paper, proposed two alignments, the first being the same one as recommended in the paper by Baerwald which analyzed the question of tonearm design more thoroughly. Because there are additional problems with reproduction of the inner grooves of the record, in addition to the effects of tracking error being more severe there, a paper by Stephenson proposed a third arrangment more heavily favoring the inner grooves. And the turntable manufacturer Thorens has pursued an alignment standard of its own.


Jim N

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