cantilever angle

[Blazer]

What is the significance of the cartridge cantilever angle (bottom view) relative to the centerline of the cartidge body. In getting back to analog, I looked at my cartridges. I'd like to check the tips with a microscope before using them after many years. I can't play them yet, as I'm waiting on a new TT belt and trying to make a phono preamp decision.

I looked at them with a 10x loupe and looking at the underside, the cantilevers are at a slight angle, not perfectly in line with the cartridge body. Is this normal after some use, or does this indicate a problem?

Dynavector Karat 23R (LOmc)
Dynavector 10x3 (HOmc)
Audio-Technica AT31E LOmc)

[KT88]

I think that I can visualize what you are trying to express here. If you are saying that if you were to lay the cartridges on a table and on their backs with the stylus facing up, then with the connection pins facing you, the cantilever would appear to veer off to either the right or the left a tiny bit. That is somewhat common and it is due the cartridges being played for a long time and the suspensions hardening or forming a "memory" to retain that position. The reason is that as the record groove turns, it pulls the cantilever along with it and the weight of the arm causes the cartridge body to which it is rigidly attached to lag slightly. Anti-skating adjustment is designed to minimize this but it is difficult to get it just right. With some systems, you really have no good idea of it being correct as they are not accurate and its a guessing game. There are some test records that have tracks which are supposed to address this but some work better than others and it is probably best to just use a typical lp as a guide. It can be hard to hear a difference for most folks too so it is a problem in theory. If you cannot hear the difference, then it may not be such the problem for you in practice ;-). I would not lose too much sleep over it really. Those are pretty nice cartridges compared to what you might otherwise have and I think that they would realign themselves somewhat after you got them installed and playing a while. The problem there will be horizontal azimuth alignment as you will need to use the cantilever rather than the cartridge body, then if it does realign itself after some use, it will have actually unaligned your "alignment"...
-Bill

[Blazer]

That's exactly what I was talking about. Thanks Bill. Now back to my phono preamp search. I e-mailed you at the shop for some advice and got some from you hear as well. Thanks so much.