What geoffkait, the tonearm or the article? Mikey's review is in the June 2020 Stereophile and Visit Reed's web site. I'm not so sure about the turntables but they make really nice tonearms. Great bearing designs.
Reed 5T Opinions
I think the Reed 5T is a brilliant design. I have seen many negative comments out there but one very positive review.
It is a tangential tracker with only one negative factor and that is that it has a second but isolated horizontal bearing.
The bearing is of the sleeve type which is like a small version of a turntables spindle bearing. There would be essentially no laxity other than in the horizontal plane. It is driven by a very slow linear motor so virtually no vibration. That motor is controlled by a laser aimed at a sensor array. The tonearm wand has brilliant needle bearings and has almost the same horizontal effective mass as vertical. There is no skating force at all. There are several arm wand materials of various effective masses so you can use any and all cartridges. The arms change out in seconds and you only need to adjust VTF. See it in action here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q-Ai35XZsE sorry for the shaky camera. Comments? What am I missing?
It is a tangential tracker with only one negative factor and that is that it has a second but isolated horizontal bearing.
The bearing is of the sleeve type which is like a small version of a turntables spindle bearing. There would be essentially no laxity other than in the horizontal plane. It is driven by a very slow linear motor so virtually no vibration. That motor is controlled by a laser aimed at a sensor array. The tonearm wand has brilliant needle bearings and has almost the same horizontal effective mass as vertical. There is no skating force at all. There are several arm wand materials of various effective masses so you can use any and all cartridges. The arms change out in seconds and you only need to adjust VTF. See it in action here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q-Ai35XZsE sorry for the shaky camera. Comments? What am I missing?
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@mijostyn I inferred the review as saying over-engineered and too expensive. I re-read the article and agree that the review is more favorable than I alluded to above. Perhaps my coffee wasn't strong enough! Also, Mikey did not say either of those things. I just want to keep the record straight and apologize for my off-the-cuff comment. |
I recently purchased the Reed 5A. Mark Dohmann set it up on a new Helix 1 MK2 turntable with the Hana Red cartridge (with a custom designed shim, from JR Boisclair at Wallytools. The shim corrects Zenith error and an additional product included with the shim corrects the rake angle error.) The sound is stunning, rivaling my Sonorus ART10 tape deck playing master tapes. This is, by far, the best sounding analogue reproduction I have ever experienced. The arm is a beautiful design, and a pleasure to use and behold. Highly recommended |
@molly , Incredible rig molly. That is my favorite turntable. I am waiting patiently until it is offered with a vacuum platter which Dohmann has said is coming along. I did not know the 5A had been released. For those who do not know what it is, it is a manual version of the 5T using the same geometric trick but with clever bearing management instead of lasers and motors. The Schroder LT is another manual arm that uses the same trick. All three arms are not offset (they are straight) remain tangent to the groove within a fraction of a degree and do not require anti skating. What the arms are doing is using the frictional pull of the record on the stylus to drive the mechanism of the arms. Normally this friction just generates heat. Good luck with your table. I'm jealous! For those who have not heard the term, Zenith Error it is a new factor that Wally Tools has jumped on. Zenith error is a rotational error of the stylus. If you were looking down on the tip of the stylus the long axis of the stylus is not perpendicular to the groove. To correct it you would have to rotate the cartridge. In order to measure it you need a good microscope which Wally Tools will also sell you. Of course if your cartridge is built correctly you do not need any of it. You can see well enough with a decent and inexpensive USB microscope. The two cartridges I currently have, a Soundsmith and a Clearaudio are good enough that I can not see any zenith error. |
The Wallytools person I spoke to at a show said thar the $1250 microscope is used primarily to set VTA/SRA but that it is not useful for reading zenith. For that, you send your cartridge to them and they use an ultra expensive microscope and give you the zenith correction which you can make with another tool of theirs. The representative said that none of the big makers of styli currently do a good job of accurately mounting styli as far as zenith is concerned, but they have said that they will look into this now that they have been shown data on this issue. |
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