Tonearm adjustments on the fly

Well I would say that environmental impact on the wood is just one of several potential problems. Perhaps even more significant is the issue of consistency of the material. Variations in grain, density, etc also could be questioned. Again I dont truly know but my guess is a major reason for using wood could be the fact that this medium is very easy to work and shape.

@chakster, I think Reed's marketing on the 3P is a bit misleading. If you look closely the vertical bearing is two points like the more expensive Origin live arms. The horizonal bearing is an upper hanging single point pulled into alignment by attracting magnets at the bottom. Since the upper bearing can be shifted horizontally azimuth can be adjusted. It has a great magnetic antiskating mechanism. It is a 3 point arm which is going to have more friction than a single point arm. Obviously it is a lot more stable. It is a very clever set up and I do not really care for it. The Arm I like the most is the 2G. The 2G has better geometry. It is a neutral balance arm and the vertical bearings are down at record level. It has fewer resonant structures. The 3P is quite complicated. 

@atmasphere, The Schroder CB's bearings are ceramic, even harder. It is reported to have the lowest friction of any captured bearing arm made. Whether that is true or not I can't say but it is a very sensitive arm and it will move with just the air currents in the room. I balanced the arm out so that it floats to set antiskating and had to turn the AC off. In spite of it being perfectly level it kept wanting to head towards the air return. Turning the AC off stopped it. Never had that happen before. The antiskating is also magnetic eliminating another bearing or friction creating device. 

As mentioned earlier, Easy VTA with my Jelco TK850L, I also have Pete Riggle VTA setup with Origin Live modded Rega.tonearm on another table.

Dear friends :  The overall VTA issue is a neccesity a must to have for any cartridge set up. 

What we have here is if at the fly is a compromise that could goes against the cartridge QLP.

""  what does it take to engineer in VTA on-the-fly and is it a compromise somewhere?

with the Rockport it was not. but now that would be a $300k-$500k turntable with that arm. it was hugely overbuilt. but that’s what it takes at the top of the food chain. i’m not an engineer,   ""

Exist different tonearm manufacturers engineering levels and each one of them with different way of thinking on their tonearm designs.

We all know about Rega tonearm that comes with  absolutely no VTA adjustment ( only by after market mods. ) and if you ask or read Rega white papers they have very good reasons for that.

Now here an unmatched ( till today ) tonearm engineering levels that a member of the Japanese giant Matushita group manufactured through Technics. The EPA-100:

http://www.thevintageknob.org/technics-EPA-100.html


but that is not the star in the Technics tonearm designs but its big bro  EPA-100 MK 2 that came with the best ever tonearm VTA mechanism ( no compromise one. ). The MK2 used Boron/Titanium in its arm wand and headshell ( here B with Al. ). Yes we read BORON the same material used in top today cartridge cantilevers and for very good reasons, I would like to see today a tonearm with all boron build material. This is the engineering level I'm talking about:

https://soundgate.net/product/OTY0.highend


That tonearm was coupled with the Technics SP 10MK3 turntable that you can see here if browse through the pictures:


http://www.thevintageknob.org/technics-SP-10MK3.html


The same VTA mechanism was shared by the Technics EPA 500 where exist at least 2 versions: one with straigth arm wand and one with S shaped.

I owned all and still own two of them. Here you can see the S shaped named EPA 250A:

https://soundgate.net/product/ODEw.highend


and here the straigth one where we can choose ( in those times. ) arm wands with different effective mass:


https://www.stereonet.com/forums/topic/260271-fs-technics-epa-500-tonearm/


As I said: engineering levels, the name of that issue " game ".

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

Btw, all those Technics needs an internal rewiring for today better quality materials.

@atmasphere, The Schroder CB's bearings are ceramic, even harder. It is reported to have the lowest friction of any captured bearing arm made. Whether that is true or not I can't say but it is a very sensitive arm and it will move with just the air currents in the room.

@mijostyn

Do they have any play in them? That's always been the tricky bit.

Stiction is a real word. (There's no 'k'.) It means just what you think it means.

:)