AFAIK Rega uses Stevenson, i.e. there isn’t a “Rega alignment”, only an alignment Rega (and many Japanese arms) happen to use. So with that in mind it’s interesting that they’re choosing to name a competitor when describing it.
Could it be that that’s their target audience, people upgrading their Rega instead of being an LP12 alternative?
And AFAIK Clearaudio’s preference is Baerwald, so that’s certainly not it.
I read an article describing some differences between gimballed and unipivot arms. Said that some unipivot arms have a system to ‘stabilize horizontal movement.’ I assume this is something other than anti-skate.
How does the new Aro fit into this paradigm?
I once had a unipivot which used a very viscid liquid at the gimble…so viscid that it did not seem to flow
Who are "they’ here? Not Naim, certainly. FWIW, someone mentioned that the pivot to spindle distance was the same as Rega (not uncommon), and confirmed by Peter, but that’s all.
The Clearaudio alignment protractor doesn’t even have Stevenson alignment. It provides four different IEC alignments, one of which is essentially Baerwald. There’s a rather technical discussion/review about it here: Clearaudio Alignment Tool Review | Vinyl Engine
Can I just say I have absolutely no clue what any of this means. Are these a bit like the Heimlich manoeuvre, but for differing sizes of fruit stone?
Lol…my reaction to pretty much every thing on the Streaming threads!
Perhaps, but it can be meaningful information to plenty of people who do their own TT setup and care about choices and getting things right. I’ve been a record collector for nearly 50 years, starting with Dual turntables when they were ubiquitous and sold everywhere. I had Thorens, Regas, and an LP12 until I settled on my current rig. I use that Clearaudio alignment protractor for my own TT setup. It’s very good. 
Matt- you are the perfect candidate for the Solstice then- no need to worry about setup. Use the Naim cartridge with the three mounting bolts and your alignment is automatically done and will have no need to worry that your set-up is off. You will hear the best from that cartridge and enjoy the music rather than worrying if it is optimized.
It’s taught by Prof. Immaculategeometry at Hogwarts…actually, it’s not that complex for us who were setting up our own TTs in the 1980s!
Well that takes care of zenith and if the arm comes with a little spirit level lake the Aro did that’s azimuth and VTA sorted, as long as the spirit level and cartridge are accurately made in the first place. The level that came with my Aro wasn’t, level that is. You still have VTF to set with an arm that will give a falsely high reading on any scales that don’t measure at record surface height.
These are all really just starting points anyway and a little fine tuning by ear will usually improve on the measurements.
Won’t it be falsely low, rather than high?..the reading on the scales, that is.
It reminds me my recent thread. It’s quite unbelievable that the arm scale of the Rega P10 arm indicates 1,60 and the weight is in fact 1,72. It’s a huge difference. I could not thought it was so much imprecise.
My past SME arm was much more precise.
I’ve had four arms on which the VTF is delivered by spring…on none of these has the scale been accurate enough to set the VTF. I think that there is an assumption that scales will be used.
This was about the alignment, not pivot to spindle distance. Plus my whole point was that that isn’t uncommon (not unique to Rega). Hence why naming them would be interesting and likely deliberate if indeed from Naim.
Regarding that, I did indeed infer that to come from Naim as AFAIK he’s not a Rega dealer, but accept that’s an assumption. Maybe that’s indeed wrong and I shouldn’t assume. Still an interesting choice of alignment either way.
Cymbiosis? They have Rega decks on their website.
Well, that indeed suggests I shouldn’t assume :-/
No, though I wasn’t considering measuring it below the playing surface.
With a tracking force applied, the COG of the arm is in front of and below the pivot point. lift the cartridge end higher and the COG moves away from the pivot increasing its moment (if I’ve remembered the right term from 50 years ago).
As an example a 17D2 that sounded best at 1.95g on a Rega 300 when transferred to an Aro sounded best at 2.24g when measured by one of those digital scales. No mat was removed when measuring as there wasn’t one in the first place and the pan was considerably thicker than even a 200g disc.
Apologies…I forgot that the stylus is below the level of the pivot.