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Hi fellow inmates ,
Which of the following tonearm design would you choose . Are there pros & cons in each design. Is the design critical in which to match one's cartridge? Given a chance to choose among the 3 designs w/c would you choose and can accommodate its short comings .
Thanks in advance,
Mondial
Follow Ups:
....that's why it makes perfect sense to use a wibbly wobbly Unipivot that will trace the record groove more precisely.
I once had an SME V on my Simon Yorke S4, Simon told me that a Unipivot would sound much better than my SME V, so I purchased the Hadcock GH242 Integra, I noticed that smoothness, relaxed sounding highs, excellent detail, lots of air, textured bass, in a nutshell "musical, the SME V in comparison had a brighter top end and was quite potent in its bass range.
Regards,
Mike.
...but not yet mentioned: a pivoting tonearm utilizing a magnetic bearing.
aka Shroeder tonearm. Its disadvantage is that it is composed of a magnet hanging off a piece of thin cord. The magnet that hangs is held in place by the magnetic attraction of another magnet just a fraction of a millimeter beneath it. Invariably, the cord will wear out and require replacement.
Its advantage is significant, however. No friction. No physical contact between the bearing halves. In the case of the Shroeder tonearm, it is universally agreed between owners of this arm that it does deliver excellent sound quality.
air bearing tonearms, that I'm aware of, tend to be linear tracking arms.
I know of no air bearing in use on a pivoting tonearm.
The unipivot design has an advantage in that it focuses all motion about a single cone/cup interface. Typically this design handles vibrational energies very well because so much mass gets focus at a single point.
gimbal bearing arms can be very good or they can be not so good. It just depends on quality of design and build. Quality of the pivot bearings. (invariably cones/cups or cones/balls in a cup.
I confess to liking gimbal arms that employ a frame work looking rather like a gyroscope. Very space-age appearance in the 1960s and 1970s. Still in use to this day.
-Steve
do you have empirical evidence? It is hard to imagine that a quarter turn every 20 minutes in both direction is going to stress a vectran cord:). Sure it will eventually fail. I will die before that.
Dee
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
quote by Kurt Vonnegut
"do you have empirical evidence?"
hard evidence of an arm arriving to a new owner with the need for cord replacement. Of course the new owner doesn't know how, so needs to get help.
Not every tonearm. But at least one. Probably more
" Sure it will eventually fail. I will die before that. "
Care to apply empirical evidence to that last statement?
--------------
No. I don't have evidence that every tonearm will need a cord replacement during its working life. But I assume it will.
Another assumption: Those who resist buying one of these tonearms probably make a similar assumption.
That won't stop me from owning one sooner or later.
-Steve
Just to add to John's already detailed reply..
Unipivots also have an additional difficulty in setting and maintaining consistent cartridge azimuth particularly with antiskate solutions involving a mass on a string - the counterweight is deliberately made so that it is off-centre to allow you to adjust the relative position to maintain azimuth. As John has already said, there are too many degrees of freedom which makes consistent alignment difficult especially if you anticipate changing cartridges reasonably often.
I'm sure VPI arm users will disagree... However, gimballed bearings can easily achieve <10mg equivalent resistance. The specifications on an SL1200 stock arm for example is <7mg.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
The unipivot and gimbal are easiest in everyday use and can accommodate a wider range of cartridges. The air bearing arm requires a cartridge with a stiff cantilever and is simple to set up.
The winner in sound quality is the air bearing hands down. lightening fast and powerful sound. Also you don't realize what pivoted arm tracking error sounds like until it's gone. The air bearing arm is subjectively less distorted.
Getting a good and quiet source of compressed air is necessary and not always home friendly.
The setup for the ones I have (Sonus/Mayware, Decca, AudioCraft, and Magnepan) is very straightforward - I've never had some of the persistent issues with setting them up that others have reported. The ones that use damping fluid in the pivot bearing cup could be a bit of a hassle if you have to replace the fluid without knowing the specs for viscosity. You have to be careful when moving them to keep from pinching the wires, maybe a bit more than gimbaled arms.
The best thing is that all of them have adjustable (at least tweakable) azimuth at the pivot, which I have found really improves the tracking & stereo separation when set correctly - again, if you don't like occasional repeated fiddling to get it dialed in, that could be a disadvantage. I've used shims in a fixed arm to get it right, but that's kind of a pain, and feels hack-y.
I have a few gimbaled arms, too and have no complaints, I just don't get quite the same liquid results and smoothness in tracking. I don't have any really high-end ones, though - Rega, a couple Technics (whatever their default arm was on the SL1200 et al). I'll never get one again without a removable headshell. In all honesty, I actually think the original AR and Thorens arms are just fine on those tables (XA and TD series from the 70's), so there goes my credibility in some camps ;)
I used a DIY air-bearing arm for a while and it sounded great, but it was a huge pain to arrange, with the pump, smoothing tank, air lines, etc. I've read comments from people who used them and immediately became converts and found it hard to listen to pivoted arms of either type, but I didn't find that to be the case. They seem great on paper, but in my experience are more pain than they're worth for whatever small margin gain of improvement you *may* get. In a ne plus ultra setup, I could maybe see going that way again.
I prefer gimbal bearing tonearms. My tonearm of choice is the SME V, but I like the SME IV and SME 300 series, too. I don't particularly care for the older SME tonearms or the newest M2-series tonearms.
Personally, I don't care for unipivot tonearms because they have too many degrees of freedom. They were originally designed to reduce bearing friction in a tonearm that could be manufactured inexpensively. However, nowadays they seem to cost just as much or more than gimbal bearing arms. They still have slightly lower bearing friction, but modern ball bearings now have extremely low friction, too, so the unipivot's advantage in that area is really insignificant. Therefore, I believe the gimbal bearing tonearm provides greater stability for the cartridge and better overall performance.
Air bearing linear tracking tonearms are probably the most complex and finicky. They also have extremely high lateral moving mass, which is undesirable. Anyway, you asked for opinions and I prefer the SME V and SME V-12 over any other tonearms I can think of at the moment.
Best regards,
John Elison
Hi John,
This is a little off topic , I would like to ask you because I know you own a SOTA Millenia turntable. My friend bought a preowned Millenia and he wanted to know how strong the vacumm/suction for warped records. The guy had Luxman turntables in the past w/ vacumm / suction capability & he noticed that the SOTA has lower vacumm power but the vacumm motor was very quiet & he can barely hear the vacumm motor.
Mondial.
Hi Mondial,
I've never measured the vacuum on my SOTA Millennia, but it is specified to provide LP clamping vacuum pressure of 3.0" Hg, +/- 0.2" Hg. This equates to a vacuum of about 1.47-psi.
There are actually two vacuum intensities when you initially start the turntable. It sucks the record down with higher vacuum and then switches to low vacuum so as not to damage the record. If there are any leaks around the seal on the record, you will hear a relay in the vacuum pump clicking continuously. It is switching back and forth between high and low vacuum. When you have a good seal, the vacuum pump switches to low vacuum immediately and remains there.
Yes, the vacuum pump is virtually silent, especially when placed on a carpeted floor. It can be sitting right next to the turntable and you won't hear it. I have no idea how it compares to other vacuum pumps, but I rarely find a record that is too warped for it suck down. When I do, I simply place another LP on top of it and when the vacuum takes hold I stop the platter and remove the top record. The vacuum on mine always holds long enough to stop the platter and start it back up again.
If your friend doesn't think his turntable is working properly, he should contact SOTA. It's possible the platter seal needs to be replaced. Mine is 12-years old now and I sometimes notice the relay in the pump clicking. When I clean the rubber seal it stops. I probably should have the platter rubber seal replace on mine one of these days in the not too distant future.
Best regards,
John Elison
Thanks John I will relay your message to my friend.
Mondial
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