2. analog
  3. 191224-33932

Straight tonearms without offset angle

In the October issue of Stereiphile, there was an article on a tonearm that had no offset angle and therefore had no skating force. The disadvantage of this is at the beginning and end of the record, the tracking angle error was much greater than what you get with an offset angle. For conventional tonearms that have an offset, and require anti-skating, which can never be perfect, the typical tracking error has a supremum of about 2 degrees, and according to online Lofgren calculators, this imposes a second-order harmonic distortion less than 2%. 

I have a single-ended triode amplifier consisting of vintage globe 45 triodes transformer coupled to 833A SETs which drives Magnepans. Such SETs typically have second-order harmonic distortion as high as 10% which does not hurt the sound. A straight tonearm without an offset would have a maximum, or supremum tracking error of just under 10 degrees. If this causes a second-order harmonic distortion of less than 10%, would not this be irrelevant in a SET system? Is there any way of calculating this, or has this ever been studied? 

128x128drbarney1
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dogberry
647 posts
 

@kennyc Your suggestion would require possession of a very rare thing: an open mind.

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rauliruegas
13,051 posts
 

Dear @viridian :  What the reviewer posted in your last link on the VIV about the kind of bearing is way important. I just today read the link information.

Way before that I posted in the VIV Labs thread something that almost no owner made a comments in my post and what I posted was the excellent damping bearing  oil " mechanism " and the arm tube O rings.

 

All those for me ( I posted a thread about just tonearm damping due to its critical importance. ) could represent over the 70% maybe more of the sound that owners experienced and still experience more than the underhung issue. Damping can easily gives that better dynamic, clarity, definition, better bass performance, etc. etc. even in overhang tonearms designs and always I posted for at least the last 20 years the tonearm critical damping.

 

I'm not dimishing the underhung idea but my first hand experiences about AS ( even what mijo and other think. ) and due that through the Wally tractor the AS range is ( I can't remember exactly. ) between 9% to 12 " that seems to me not really substantial I can confirm that if we use a good tonearm design  ( good damped too. ) if we use it with out apply any AS the " response " from that fact is not only cleary, dynamic and the like but the MUSIC flows as in a live event. I don't use AS and over all the grooved LP surface the imaging is DEAD centered always.

That's really why I don't but the VIV. Again that kind of those to ways of damping are really the VIV: oil floating bearing and O rings.

That's my take and I appreciated that you linked to know that not only me took seriously the tonearm damping in the VIV but that reviewer.  Seems to me that almost all owners give everything to the underhung design, well not me even that I'm not an owner.

Yes as JC said: the S and intrinsecal " play " with the AS is the problem down there, so why not NO AS in overhang tonearm. This is me, only thinking " loud ".

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,

R.

 

slaw's avatar
slaw
21,396 posts
 

Agree on the bearing.

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