Ortofon 2M cartridge and many other cartridges bodies have nonparallel sides making the alignment of the cartridge body with the lines of tangency on the gauge almost impossible. Usually, an alignment protractor is used to discover the correct distance from the stylus tip to the tonearm pivot.
Whenever a protractor used for alignment tangency is been carried out on Ortofon 2M cartridge, it is very important not to forget that you are trying to align the cantilever, not the cartridge body. When you only align the cartridge body, it will not necessarily produce the desired result.
An alignment protractor is a plastic template onto which are usually printed the null points and lines of tangency against which the cartridge should be aligned. It is quite easy to align Ortofon 2M cartridge, you can simply place the template over the turntable’s spindle and make it pass through a spindle-sized hole drilled in the template and place it against the platter.
The cartridge must now be adjusted till the cantilever is parallel to the set of parallel lines for it to be accurate, this process should be carried out each for both the indicated points.
When you see that the cartridge’s longitudinal axis is on a parallel axis with the horizontal lines, you can then track it because, at this point, any tracking error that might occur will surely be at a minimum. Disable anti-skate and try to align the stylus to the grid lines with the diamond tip resting solely on the center of the null point.
When this is slowly raised and lowered, the stylus will surely help to get the angles right in terms of ensuring. You can use a mirror to align the stylus/ cantilever for accurate gauges, also a paper gauge can be used to align the cartridge body and the stylus. You can as well stick a led from a mechanical pencil across the front of the cartridge to make it much easier than the rest.
