Turntable Phono Cartridge Stylus Alignment Protractor Tool Mirror

Replaced an old cartridge, so wanted something like this. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it’s basic, it works, the mirrored surface seemed to really help, it was easy… I wasn’t sure if I quite used it right, aligned things “good enough” - but for high audio quality digitization I’d embarked on, the new cartridge sounded markedly clearer, better. That is to say, I payed unusually detailed attention to the results (including spectral analysis tools), and it seems this simple tool really is “good enough” that the result is impeccable sound. I’ll take it! It sits on my turntable now, in the back corner - a permanent member of my equipment.

I just finished aligning my Ortofon blue cartridge on my Fluance RT85 using this mirrored alignment tool.Fantastic. You need good vision to use but with me being near sited it worked great. The mirror reflection works to square the alignment by viewing angle adjustments. You move your viewing until it aligns one line over the other square. Fluance states the the cartridge is already aligned but by using the alignment tool, I adjusted the alignment to perfect. This is a great tool.

First the mirror both helps and hurts you. It helps by getting you lined up. It hurts you for stylus alignment. The lines reflect in the mirror. Thus you have to be right over the cartridge. I had a paper card that came with the turntable years ago that did the same thing. Using this tool comfirmed that my cartridge alignment was perfect. Cartridge alignment is very important for sound quality. I am converting my albums to CD. And the playback is amaizing. I recomend it because it is of good quality and it works. Four stars because it is not the easiest to use with old eyes.

I switch cartridges pretty frequently to do A/B comparisons, and this little protractor is, for me, a lot easier than printing out an alignment protractor every time. Not only that, it's also a lot sturdier than a piece of paper.I read the reviews prior to buying this and I don't understand some people's confusion about the mirror and/or their difficulty in seeing the lines. As long as you're looking straight down onto your turntable (like you're supposed to do) I can't see anyone having trouble with this.

ordered it and received it after i got my new cartridge and headshell. so, ended up using it to check my alignment after the fact. there are two points, A & B that you place your stylus on. small grids around those points makes for a busy visual against the mirrored backdrop. basically, i had to use my guide light and kneel down to the turntable to see where the stylus was in relation to the points. then, stand up to see how parallel my cartridge was against the grid lines.easy to use, clear instructions, good concept and good results. my eyeball installation was close, this tool got me into perfect territory.

Setting up a tonearm/cartridge to be the best it can be can be difficult. The mirror surface makes this sooooo much easier than the free protractors you can find on the net. Worth buying if you are using a really good cartridge/arm combo and mayby even for mainstream setup. If yu got a $25.00 cart and lots of time go free. If you have a modest or higher investment and want your expenditure to deliver it's best as easily as possible than this is worth it.

I replaced the original cartridge that came with my turntable with a highly rated cartridge and was somewhat disappointed with its performance. While it performed better than the original, it still had problems tracking some of the older LPs and the high notes were definitely cut off. I was about to write off LP's as a satisfactory source of music, but then bought the Stylus Alignment Tool. I consider myself to better than average mechanically and was surprised to find that I had installed the cartridge about 10 to 15 degrees out of alignment.In retrospect, I had aligned the cartridge with the tone arm which you would think would be perpendicular to the LP track, but it obviously was not. Now I am enjoying LPs with the full tonal range, I have fewer problems with skips, and the pops I associate with LPs are greatly reduced. I strongly recommend an alignment tool to set up a cartridge correctly. Anyone mounting a cartridge will be well rewarded for their investment and can enjoy music from LPs with a quality similar to CDs.

I determined that this protractor is pretty much using the Lofgren A alignment system as it's design which is one of the standards available that you can find on the internet. I found that the quality control on the product was very inadequate. The first one arrived bent. The replacement for that one had a spindle hole too small. So I decided to make my own changes to the protractor to make it usable. First I found out the proper size of the hole and manually I carefully enlarged it with appropriate drill bit. Second since it was very difficult to keep a stylus in the required position, I used a small drill and manually created a small indent in the plastic at the correct position so that the stylus would have a resting spot on the slippery surface. The price of this item is far higher than the quality would suggest. $5 would be more appropriate since you can calculate and print out the Lofgren A graph yourself.