Comparison of sonic qualities of some tonearms

Well, I just tried to post a long and thoughtful response, including experimental data plots, but it was blocked. No good deed as they say.

Suffice it to say, you are right to ask a very good question. Don’t fall for the bland assertions made by those who cannot conceive of a universe in which their intuitions and tastes are not laws of nature. Sapphire can sound good - I’ve made one. But I can make a better one from natural fibre composites. Panzerholz too is very good - just as good as it measures - see my virtual system - no, better not, it’s ugly as h-ll.

Ebony, by the way, measures so badly that it should never be considered. IMO.

@rauliruegas  True. And generous too. 

@mijostyn No, the problem is that some, like ebony, have huge peaks and valleys in frequency response. Koetsu uses rosewood, Grado uses Cocobolo, and can make cartridges that sound exquisite - but there are better choices for tonearms.

You say, "There is so much beauty in nature and natural wood that is every bit as functional as panzer holtz." So you say - proof? Evidence? You know -= anything other than assertion?

Oil - yuk! its just rotten remains of plants. And Rembrandt used OIL paint! Yuk Yuk Yuk.

Reed, the tonearm manufacturer, did extentensive testing on metals and exotic woods. They took down many of their test measurements, but some remain available. I tried to link to that part of their site, but was unsuccessful. You might try their site and see.

I’ve used all aluminum and all Panzerholz in a commercial LT, and in my own air bearing LT have compared sapphire, Panzerholz, cocobolo, katalox, and pampas grass for various parts of the wand. Supporting cast includes silk, aluminum, brass, stainless, epoxy. The best is pampas grass / cocobolo / katalox composite, but all Panzerholz is not far behind. I use cocobolo only for the cartridge mount, because I use that wand for a cartridge which is made of cocobolo.

I’m too impatient (and too poor) to do exhaustive comparisons of each part, so theory dictates what gets made into prototypes. Every material has its own characteristics and may be suitable for a different use. I discriminate against none.

I'm sorry, Dr. Bond, but I seem to have missed the point. I sidetracked myself into a discussion about materials.

I think that we can all agree that a cartridge can only sound its best when it is held rigidly at the correct angles: tangential, VTA, and azimuth.

That means adjustment. The finer the adjustments, and the better they are maintained, the better the sound. So adjustability should be considered as well as rigidity and damping. IMO

Of course everyone knows that you neeed to set up the tonearms properly with respect to VTA, etc

But few have adjustability as one of their top criteria. 

@lewm As for adjusting azimuth, I think that the only reliable way is to do it by ear. Peter Ledermann of Soundsmith has a piece on it, which seems very convincing to me.

He points out that his best cartridge, the Hyperion, often has large crosstalk differences between the channels - like 6dB or more !!! That is, the left channel might have 44dB of separation and the right channel 50dB of separation. Therefore, he says, setting for equal channel separation is a serious error.

When I read this, some years ago, I knew why I had been unable to get equal channel separation on my Koetsu, even though it was canted over by a degree or more! And sounded awful, although I was trying to convince myself that it sounded good because, well, it measured better that way.

So, now I listen for smoothness. Less harsh, less CD-like, more like I want to listen for another two hours, more like the instruments and singers that I know - the grand piano upstairs is a great reference!. I listen for clarity with vocals sung in dialect, like Scots. I listen to renaissance accompanied choral music where sopranos and viols are on the same note - Harmonia Mundi has a lot of these. Adjust for smoothness.

And aggressive strings in the high register, like Barber’s Adagio or Paert’s Fratres. I am adjusting my Epoch to the midpoint of an interval of about 5 minutes of arc - the extremes (endpoints) are obvious, after a little listening.

Consider how you would mount a stylus on a high end cartridge. You would do it optically, with magnification and crosshairs, and maybe get it within 15 degrees of arc. Maybe. Even if you’ve got a long enough line on the stylus to align to within 15 minutes, what about the way in which the point was cut relative to the shank? Is it within 15 minutes? Not easy to say, let alone QC. This last paragraph is surmise. I don't actually know, and don't know how to find out.

That leaves a lot of room for improvement, and it’s audible. And with adjustability, doable.

IMO. YMMV.

@lewm Thanks for the note. I mistakenly thought you were talking about azimuth. Since I use a LT, it’s not so much of an issue for me - assuming that the cantilever is straight, which is a lot more obvious and a lot easier than azimuth.

Sorry gents, but I hear +/- a fraction of a degree of azimuth in my system. Caveats: classical, revealing music from pristine US cleaned records; LT air tonearm with adjustments +/- 20 microns in 2D, acting over a 250mm shaft of 20mm steel. Thus may mileage vary.

@lewm  Don't want an argument - rather, I value your views. But you did say,

"I agree with Mijostyn on azimuth adjustment."

Mijostyn said,

The sonic difference between +- a few degrees is essentially inaudible ...

I was responding to that. Glad to know that does not represent your views. I think that azimuth can be optimized for most LP's if you make sure that they (LP's) are absolutely flat, like with a reflex clamp and a record flattener.

@sokogear

I believe some of you have gone way past the point of obsession.

Yeah, guilty, Your Honour. Fair cop. Still, it beats a smart phone.

Try listening to those files - there is a clear difference between some of them

Based on my own experiments, I think that it is possible that SAT is varying the rigidity / damping trade-off. File 1 is insufficiently damped, File 5 is insufficiently rigid, IMO. I think that 2-4 hit the sweet spot, and your preference depends on your taste. I think that I could listen to #2 all night without fatigue (well damped with good rigidity), maybe #4 (more rigid), but not  3 (least damped but most rigid).

My own wands would sound most like #2 (natural fibre composites) and #3 (sapphire), or so I suspect. Thanks for posting @2channel8 . I wouldn't have thought it possible.

"Something is broken" on which one? Or rigged? Which is it?

Based on my experiments, all five are plausible with the same cartridge. Not to mention changes in set-up. When changing tonearms, it is impossible not to change the alignment of arm board (or head shell) and cartridge. Azimuth can do some of that, so can VTA. So can countless decisions in tonearm design.

What calibrated instrument do you use? What is it's accuracy? What judgements are required?

Typo, sorry. 

Now consider that, at the time of the Big Bang, the entire cosmos was in a quantum state. When the Big Bang is observed, say with a radio telescope, it is changed by the observer (Copenhagen). What is the nature of this change? One can only supposes that the universe is changed to make the observation itself more likely; that is, to optimize the universe for the being to see furthest back in time, and to ’see’ in the most detail. That being would be the Maximal Observer.

This explains the mechanism behind the Anthropic Principle.

The question is, to what extent should we fund astronomy? Are we in a universal race to see furthest back in time? Mr. President, we cannot allow a Radio Telescope Gap !!!

Back in the day, ’Big Bang’ was a derogatory name for the theory that eventually came to dislodge ’Steady State’. Perhaps it’s time for the pendulum to swing back.

This is why linear tracking tonearms are no advantage

But this is not an agreed fact. Science proceeds by finding reasons for agreed facts; these reasons become models; and models make predictions, which are subject to test.

You seem to be stating a prediction and treating it as an experimental fact.