I deleted my first reply because-- 920 lathes come with test certificates!And you believed it ?
Without checking ?
On a Far Eastern machine ? (AKA "A kit of part machined castings, loosely assembled for ease of tranport")
The headstock to bed alignment check is a lot easier with a test bar directly in the spindle taper. How else can you check that the spindle axis is pointing slightly upwards & slightly towards the tool (as specified in National Standards (British & DIN in my experience)) ? And this is normally checked after levelling the bed to ensure it is straight & not twisted with a precision level (again, as specified in National Standards - and usually the first check). While the test bar is mounted, you can also check that the taper is running true (part of National Standards.....).
The same goes for the alignment of the tailstock barrel - it should point slightly upwards & toward the toolpost. Yes, you can clock over the top & side of the barrel, but drills locate in the taper !
I used to work for a CNC machine tool rebuild company & we
always used a spindle test bar to check that the headstock was correctly aligned. On large bore machines where the spindle "bung" was missing, we had replacement bungs made (at great cost, usually) to allow the use of an MT 4 or MT5 test bar. We also had special bars made - one was to check the turrets of Webster & Bennett vertical borers. Once the headstock was within spec. on a levelled bed, the saddle would be scraped in & part of that was to trammel the front cross-slide shear from the spindle to ensure that a slightly concave cut would result.
(Concave turning is not achieved by throwing the headstock, it is achieved by throwing the saddle).
So I would suggest that the original poster is taking a sensible course of action to check for himself that his machine is up to scratch. I will be doing the same when I get round to CNC converting a Chester mini-lathe - even though it is new, I want to see for myself that the headstock is correctly aligned.
The headstock and whatever have been aligned by far more accurate instruments than we can affordA DTI & test bar are not expensive. And how much time do you think that a Chinese factory is going to spend checking & adjusting a headstock ? (or tailstock, or saddle etc.) For a machine that sells here (after shipping costs & re-seller profit margins) for the kind of money a 920 lathe sells for ?
unless you want to snap the lathe bed, it ain't going to twist. 
That is so far off the mark !
That leaves the tailstock which has only ONE degree of freedom- and that is sidewaysThe base of the tailstock doesn't wear as you slide it up & down the bed ? Are you sure you don't want to check that ?
To adjust the tailstock/poppet/ whatever you want to call it, ........Or just mount you test bar & clock round that. And the bit that slides in & out of the tailstock body is the barrel (or chute).
Entertaining thread !
Regards,
Nigel B.