Discuss The Viv Lab Rigid Arm

@dogberry I have made it known within this thread previously that a similar trial as your own is intended to be experienced on a New Tonearm Design I am very familiar with.

I am not sure when this is to occur, but it will, the designer / builder of the Tonearm is inquisitive enough to want to know how the experience will impact on them, I am  keen to see how the experience impacts on me as well.

A mod' to a Headshell is easily achievable, nothing ventured, nothing gained. 

Your thoughts on what you experienced even with the proposed notion the Geometry might not be ideal, should not be a reason to deter, is the not the whole debate about overhung / underhung all about the Geometry being incorrect on one type and the compensation measures in place on the other type being negative influence ???      

I guess the questionable part is whether the bearings being aligned with an offset headshell is going to make the rest of the experiment invalid?

I guess the questionable part is whether the bearings being aligned with an offset headshell is going to make the rest of the experiment invalid?

My take on it is Just Do It....I  think the flaw here is without actually doing the test,  to assume that *IF* it makes a sonic difference that the 'mis-aligned' bearing is a liability and not an asset.  It seems a common experience that in trying to do comparisons, the perceived sonic difference in two tests is not confined to / caused by the singular parameter being examined.

This discussion kinda got to this point from the categorical insistance that the high  TAE of an underhung arm means they are a flawed design and must be awful sounding.  This coming from a group that has never heard one of the arms in question.   Based on a long list of anecdotal reports that this may not be the case. This puts me in lew's corner looking at the other parameters for possible 'alternative explanations'  that may help paint a clearer picture of how what we hear aligns with what we think.

dave

Dave, in line with what you say about the placing of the single null point, I related earlier my experience where I had gotten sloppy about using the supplied template to align the Viv; I was slapping cartridges in there without checking with the template. Until I got to the point where I re-installed a cartridge that earlier had sounded great in the Viv, and I was underwhelmed. This drove me to check alignment, and I found it was grossly wrong because the cartridge was in a different headshell. When I corrected alignment using the Viv template, it came back to life. Before correction, the null point was on the label, way off.

Dear @theophile : No, he does not wrote that way but looks as he implicate that and many other things.

Go figure and in good shape with lewm:

this is not the first time that he made a critic against an analog audio world icon of the Löfgreen caliber, he made it ( against Löfgreen ) at least over 5-6 times in Agon different threads

when in no other internet audio forum some one different gentleman posted something similar not even reviewers or gentlemans as bAERWALD, sTEVENSON, Bauer, Pisha whom made it its own alignment calculations that at the end mathematicaly are similar

to the Löfgreen alignments where no one of them never made a critic to any of the 90+ Löfgreen white papers pages. Not only that but 50+ tonearms designers/manufacturers choice/reference was and is Löfgreen alignments.

I know for sure that almost all of us are amateur audiophiles with out the scientist levels of Löfgreen. I know that audiophiles with a huge high technical knowledge levels than me as B.Ellison or M.Kelly or D.Garretson and other never made that kind of critic that’s ( for me ) at the border of insult.

In the other side, the "stupid " nayseyers as me only say that the VIV tonearm has higher tracking distortions that at the same time develops higher THD and IMD against other normal pivoted tonearms with offset-angle. I’m not touching thesubjective facts because every one likes what they likes I’m only refering to objective facts where the VIV has not lower tracking distortion levels or at least the VIV designer never proved or any other audiophile with facts and away from that : " I like it ". because this is not the issue.

Theophile so we can stay calm using Löfgreen alignments. Don't worry.

R.