Tonearm adjustments on the fly

In my opinion TriPlanar is ugly industrial design while the Reed 3p is pretty elegant (remind me of DaVinci tonearm a bit).

It is, but also features the hardest metal bearings used in any tonearm made worldwide. This allows the bearings to be adjusted so there is zero play, something you can't do with a jeweled bearing (lest it crack). So it has the least chatter and sticktion (I made that word up but you know what I mean) of any arm made. So while it might not win any beauty contests, it does get the job done. Of any arm I've tried and used it comes the closest to sounding like my master tapes.

Dear Chakster, I would not disagree for a moment that the Reed 3P is more beautiful than the Triplanar.  What's more, you can order one in different wood and metal finishes to suit your taste, like a car.  In my opinion, the Reed toneams are sonically competitive as well.  My only point was to challenge the notion that the Reed 3Ps azimuth adjuster was "the best".  It's very good, I'm sure, and does the job adequately.  Comparing my Reed 2A to my own Triplanar, built by Herb Papier nearly 30 years ago, I would have to say that the quality of the adjuster on the TP, taken as a tool only, is a bit higher than the one on the 2A.  The TP adjuster has a better "feel" and allows for finer movements up and down.  Tri, the current maker of the TP, has improved the adjuster on current manufacture TPs even above mine.  By comparison, the 2A is a bit coarse feeling. The 3P may be a different animal for all I know.
Mike L, Do you know what prompted Durand to switch from wood arm wands, the use of wood for which were at the heart of the company philosophy once upon a time, to other materials?  I have heard the Talea, Talea2, and the Telos on a neighbor's system.  My too brief listening impressions suggested to me that the Telos was not much of a sonic upgrade on the Talea 2.  In fact, I might have preferred the latter.  The Talea 2 with a UNIverse cartridge was memorable.  (Same turntable, phono, amps, and speakers in both cases.)  Of course, the cartridge mating is key.

Mike L, Do you know what prompted Durand to switch from wood arm wands, the use of wood for which were at the heart of the company philosophy once upon a time, to other materials? I have heard the Talea, Talea2, and the Telos on a neighbor’s system. My too brief listening impressions suggested to me that the Telos was not much of a sonic upgrade on the Talea 2. In fact, I might have preferred the latter. The Talea 2 with a UNIverse cartridge was memorable. (Same turntable, phono, amps, and speakers in both cases.) Of course, the cartridge mating is key.

Lew, initially Joel used the ’treated’ wood since it resulted in a better performance than the metal arm wands he tried. he did not start out intending to use the wood as a dogma. he did detailed finite element analysis along with all his listening and found wood the best choice.......and not because it was wood. i think he tried at least 100 different arm wands before settling for the specific treated wood he ended up with.

then later he switched to composite arm wands as they took him further. although some of his customers still order arms with treated wood arm wands. Joel is a music professor at the University of Washington which has lots of engineering support as well as all the materials science support related to the aerospace (Boeing). it helps that Joel is a (self taught) machinist as well as a mathematician.

as far as the Telos and Talea 1 and 2; the Telos demands a degree of set-up and ’feel’ that is considerable to extract all it can do. setting up the azimuth bridge and anti-skate exactly right is not plug and play. i’ve owned 3 Telos’s including the Telos Sapphire. and owned the standard Telos with the wood arm wand and composite arm. the Talea is a fine tonearm, and i could understand how it could surpass the Telos.

i also own the Durand Kairos (composite arm wand) which is a scaled down Telos. i use it on my EMT948 for stereo cutter head mono’s. it uses a composite arm wand. i slightly prefer that to the Talea.

VTA and SRA are not identical but so close as to possibly not be worthy of concern. But, as MC points out on damage control after earlier stating the opposite, they are not the same. 

Again I want an explanation other than "it sounds better" regarding the viability of wood as a medium for tonearms. 

Some of the Micro Seiki arms have 'on-the-fly' adjustments for VTA.  I know, for example, the MA-505 variants have this, as well as the MA-808.  The 'on-the-fly' adjustment is more micro in nature.  You have to get it close first with a macro adjustment, raising or lowering the pivot and pillar, then using the set screws.  After that, it can be tweaked with micro adjustments using a rotating/sliding arm lever that will lock into place.

Personally, I only look at SRA.  I want to see the stylus tilting just forward of vertical - about 92 degrees.  I don't worry about the cantilever's angle, or even the levelness of the tonearm to the platter (except as a starting point).  I know some, more exotic, stylus profiles don't follow the 92 degree rule based on the actual cut, but it's a good general rule.

P.S. @millercarbon, Isn't it 'newbs', as in, short for 'newbies'?  I know 'noobs' is perhaps more phonetically sensible, but...