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In Reply to: When you engineer a tonearm.... posted by tubesforever on April 25, 2007 at 14:57:13:
because I admittedly do not know much about tonearm design, but do tonearm designers take into account the alignment method when designing other parameters that will affect the arms performance? By that I mean, if an alignment method tends to be overly bright, will a tonearm designer tend to compensate by warming up the rest of the arm so to speak? Is there logic in saying that a general rule of thumb is to use the alignment method the arm was designed around? Is a slightly askew cart the only negative result of using a different alignment method than the one the arm was intended?Thanks Tubes by the way along with BK. This is one of the more helpful threads I've seen in a long time. I have a syntec which is has fairly odd dimensions. I could never get the cart aligned without having it sit a few degrees off. This always bugged me and affected my confidence level in my ability to set up a cart. I used the tool BK suggested to realign my cart and its perfect. I would say it sounds a good bit better but my speakers are in the process of breaking in and it sounds better daily. Well at least daily for the last couple days.
Thanks all!!!!
Follow Ups:
Hope they break in nicely.
I'm really happy with them so far. This was my first attempt at heavy duty woodworking. I learned Gorilla glue turns your hands black if you're not careful. I haven't finished or veneered them yet. They're just plain mdf. They sound great!!! I spent about $850 for the parts(4 drivers - 2 tweeters - electronics - active and passive sub drivers - wood - sub amp), and got several grand worth of speaker. If you are not familiar with them I can give more detail. This is the best deal I can think of if you are a do it yourselfer!!!
My most recent are built expressly for my apartment setting.The lower driver is a Scan Speak Revelator 7" thrown paper on graphite cone, the upper is the 5 1/4 inch Revelator cut carbon cone, then I have MB quartz 3" titanium dome mid tweets and the Foster Ribbons.
To say things sound effortless, uncompressed and very natural is an understatement. These things just blow me away with their detail, their emotion and their ability to sound like natural live music.
I have just under a grand in each speaker with parts, cabinet, and crossovers. They have the transient detail and air of an electrostatic, the midrange of a Sonus Faber and I am getting ultra low sub sonics with a couple of 12 inch Peerless XLS drivers in separate cabinets behind the main speakers.
Building speakers can be as much fun as building plinths and restoring old Rek O Kuts from the dead.
Let me know how your speakers break in. These seem very economical adn I am certain they sound at least as good as a 2,000 per pair set of speakers....probably even more.
If you are interested you can go to the link below and see the speaker design I used. I hastily designed and built the stands and used left over 3/4" MDF. They are basic stands with a 16^2" base, 4" thick columns and a 7x14 inch plate at the top to hold the speakers. They are about 48" tall. I put the feet from GR research on the base of the stands and currently just have wine cork type feet I got at michael's between the stands and the speakers. I originally used the some foam/cork pads I made but didn't like them as much as the wine corks. Should I go ahead and pop for the extra set of metal spike feet or do you have another suggestion? Do you have any speaker stand recs?Did you design you speakers from scratch or did you use a commercial design? I had a great time building my speakers. I think at some point in the next many many years I think I'm going to assemble a cornet II into a unique wood box. The baby and an impending move to LA in a couple months are the reasons I built these speakers in the first place. I had Alons but they are dipole and require placement deep in the room. I doubt I'll have the room in LA for proper placement. Further I don't really like the idea of a baby running around speakers that are several feet into the living room. I'd just as soon put the speakers as close to the wall as possible.
By the way, thanks for helping my Dad (Jazzthusiast) on his Russco project. He really valued what you and the several other folks who took an interest in his project had to say.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Nate
The speaker drivers were purchased from ebay or Speaker City in Los Angeles.I bought the Ribbons and the 3" titaniums from Speaker City back in the mid 80's. They were 45 bucks each for the ribbons and 149 dollars each for the 3" titaniums way back then!
The Revelators sell new for about 175 dollars each.
The crossovers are pretty clean and I have vinyl sound deadener inside the boxes as well as pads to adjust the tweeter and mid tweeter output for when I swap between solid state and tube amps.
I have a great deal of money in the internal wiring and the crossovers. They sound pretty tasty.
If you hear the Martin Logan Ascents, these sound just as open and airey, and just as dynamic however they have tighter bass, a more defined sound stage, and do not require you to sit with your head in a vice.
If you get a chance to hear Sonus Faber Cremona speakers these will have the same wonder midrange, less bass bloat, and much clearer from the midrange up.
If you get a chance to hear the Sonus Faber Guarnari Homage speakers these will sound a little warmer in the vocals and a little more crisp and airey up top.
These are all pretty nice speakers and the tubes DIY project sounds like the best of all three without any of the deficiencies I hear in these other speakers.
I sold all of the above and like mine more. Although my cabinets do need the tubes touch in the future. Perhaps in a year or two.
HiIn principle a tonearm should be designed with aligned bearings - i.e. where the vertical pivot axis is perpendicular to the cantilever. This design method ensures that the azimuth of the stylus does not change as the height of the record surface changes, e.g. when cartridge rides warps in the record, or when changing from playing 90g to 180g pressings.
Some modern tonearms are designed this way. Examples include the SME III, 309, IV, V, all Rega RB tonearms, Zeta, Breuer, and, for that matter the tonearm on the Technics SL-1200.
However, most of the classic tonearms are not designed that way, e.g. SME series II, Ortofon RMG / SMG etc.
Furthermore, there are many examples of modern tonearms which do not have aligned bearings: Clearaudio Satisfy, Origin Live Silver, Encounter, Illustrious, etc SME M2.
In addition, for all uni-pivot tonearms, the azimuth is effected as the height of the record playing surface changes.
Skewing the cartridge in the headshell throws of the alignment of the bearings by a few degrees for tonearms with aligned bearings, but it is all ready off by about 20 degrees for tonearms which don't have aligned bearings, so one cannot argue credibly that this is an issue for such tonearms.
To say that a cartridge must be squared up in the headshell for good sound, is equivalent to saying that all tonearms which don't have aligned bearings sound bad, e.g. the Graham 2.2, Schroder, Naim, SME 3012, Ortofon RMG309, Alphason HR100s etc, and that is clearly a ridiculous statement! So in conclusion any argument that the cartridge must be aligned in the headshell for good sound is just nonsense.
Personally speaking, I do not believe that the holy grail of sound reproduction lies in fine of the tuning the null radii selected. I find arguments that one particular alignment is preferable to another to be somewhat suspect.
Best regards,
I did not mean to say that an engineer is going to alter the tonearm design or material composition to correct deficiencies. I really hope this is not the case.Rather, the tonearm manufacturer is going to design the tonearm to the most popular style cartridges of its period. In fact some manufacturer's also sell cartridges. In certain cases using the manufacturers cartridge in their own tonearm might be a good option to simply keep things simple and straight forward. This is the Rega approach to buy it and enjoy it the way it comes.
If you run Baerwald on a Stephenson design the cartridge might be set off several degrees from the centerline of the bearing. Some say this should not matter in the least bit, but my ears tell me otherwise with Rega and early SME tonearms.
In my perspective, the ideal would be to understand the design, pick a cartridge that works with it and follow the manufacturer's alignment scheme. If the results do not sound good then by all means try every alignment out there.
I don't think I have ever listened to only one alignment scheme on any arm or cartridge I have owned. I usually end up trying most of the major alignments. I find this fascinating to discover which scheme works best with a complex vocal or a seriously difficult instrument like a vibraphone or saxaphone.
I am trending into merky waters now....there are no absolutes. You have to try every option to exactly know how each one sounds.
Go with what sounds best. Your ears should be the final arbitor of quality sound reproduction.
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