Comparison of sonic qualities of some tonearms

 The SAT tonearm does not qualify. it is nothing more than a substitute for a "mighty sword" (Randy Newman). A tonearm should have no sound of it's own.

What are you talking about-and in what respect is the SAT arm compromised? You write like a chatbot supported by a 1970's Atari computer. 

From an aesthetic view tonearm cables should exit beneath the tonearm board. They interfere less with suspensions and dust covers this way aside from looking much better.

First you claim that aesthetics are best left for show-cars and next you claim that aesthetics are important. And you seem to ignore that dust covers interfere with performance of a turntable. 

This business with fat cables and fancy sheaths is again for men with undersized mighty swords. 

What fat cables? I have seen fat power cords and even speaker cables but not with turntables. "Fancy sheaths"? Are you medicated? What the heck are you talking about? 

I love too that you misspelled "rigid" two or three times and then later spelled it correctly. Wow. 

Mijo, you are very consistent in maintaining that a tonearm should have no sound of its own, but what does that mean? Since we can’t know how a TA sounds without a cartridge. And different TAs with different cartridges can sound very different.

Agreed. Or, to put it differently, saying that "a tonearm should have no sound of its own" is in logic terms a tautological contradiction. A tonearm can not be evaluated without a cartridge mounted and playing a record. You now have vibrations going from the record into and onto the cantilever and then into and onto the tonearm. Sympathetic resonances are impossible to eliminate entirely no matter the design, material, and damping.

Vinyl replay is the inverse of loudspeaker transducers. And like loudspeakers, you can go to heroic lengths to eliminate enclosure vibration but the drivers installed in that inert enclosure still vibrate and distort when driven and in the process of doing so the floor and room react to the vibrations as well. This is analogous to what is at play with cartridges and tonearms. You have to face reality and "play the room" by which I mean an ideal tonearm for a given cartridge compliments the cartridge in a euphonic manner.

To put it even more simply, we listen in homes, not laboratories.

 

@mijostyn  : " A tonearm can not improve sound quality. it can only degrade it.   " 

 

I already posted something similar not only with tonearms but with other audio items and obviously that I'm in agree totally with you.Well the best that can do a perfect tonearm ( that does not exist. ) is not degrades the cartridge signal. All tonearms make a signal degradation no matters what.

So my take is to look for the tonearm that could makes the lower signal degradation. Degradation takes the form of added to the signal: colorations, distortions, noises, etc, etc.

That's why we need a real REFERENCE when we make comparisons, any kind of comparisons.

This is bullcrap. That is my opinion and you are welcome to yours. 

As I said before, we don't listen in laboratories. You folks need to get out your own heads and cease thinking (pun) that you can intuit your way to the truth. 

Raul, for what seems like a thousand years you have sung your torch song that it is "the musics [sic] and not the distortions [sic]" and, well, how about moving on already to something more useful than a banality that happens to be both meaningless and yet paradoxically wrong. 

What if, using my previous analogy, we were to believe that a speaker enclosure can never compliment the qualities of the drivers mounted to it and instead can only degrade them? What if we were told to believe that a violin's soundboard can never compliment the sound of the strings and can only degrade them? 

Give it a break already. And stop preaching from on-high. 

Why do so many cartridge manufacturers and after market modders (e.g. Zu) offer different cartridge shells? If certain pundits in this thread were correct that a tonearm can only be neutral or degrade the sound than what is happening when the wood, choice of stone (Koetsu, Etsuri), composite, or alloy cartridge shell is applied to a given motor? The answer is rather obvious; the manufacturer understands that for any given motor assembly a shell choice can compliment and not detract.

Nothing is more imperfect than audio reproduction via vinyl records! It is laughingly crude. Think of The Flintstones and Barney putting the bird’s head and beak down to a record rotating on a round rock. A mere harmless cartoon and yet ironically not far from the truth.

The fact that there is so much beauty, love, and enjoyment to be had from playback of vinyl records is testament that the process is part science and a very healthy part art.