TW-Acustic Raven 10.5 or DaVinci Grandezza??

Lewm, Grandezza tonearm (I have one, in rhodium) is only named after an Italian, albeit a genius as in Leonardo, i presume. My motorcycle is very special limited edition (MH900E) with no miles (Italian), put away. My three road race bicycles, (full italian), have no odometers, so I ride ... plus I feel any accumulated miles are on me! I have not had an Italian girlfriend, yet .... when I do find her, I hope she cooks!! Sorry for the Italy detour:)

Dear friends: As other people in this thread already showed there are several contradictions on almost any post by dertonarm and that's why I posted that he is a non trusty chameleon opinion ( at least on these subjects/regards. ). Here are other contradictions on what he stated in this thread:

he applaud the SME V ( I own this tonearm and this is not the point but what he said in two post on the same subject. ):

+++++++ They did not give this very precise figure out of the blue........

SME took for granted all industry standards of its day (early 1980ies) and said:

"well, if all cartridge designers do obey to and follow the standards given and if all LPs are cut following the new IEC standard, then evrything will be perfect with our new tonearm - it will be the "best tonearm in the world"............"

But the world is an imperfect one and many people do want to go their own ways.

The new SME surely was the LEAST UNIVERSAL tonearm ever designed .......

The SME V was a child of its day and was regarded when introduced as the first tonearm which took all (some of them fairly new...) industry standards for record-cutting and cartridge dimensions serious.
Too serious. ++++++++

now on the Davinci/azymuth where he favored against this thread where we " don't need it anymore but because marketing it came incorporated in its tonearm ". Here start about:

+++++ Dear Halcro, you can not compensate azimuth offset with balance control. Azimuth offset means - always! - a misalignment of the stylus towards BOTH groove walls. This has to be fixed at the source. You can mask the sonic result to some degree (in fact only the channel imbalance.. ) with the balance control, but the problem remains and it will shorten both - the life-time of your stylus AND records.
Aside from the sonic presentation (soundstage width and depth and high frequency reproduction) which does suffer too.
To fix this issue, do get AND use very thin plastic washers (sometimes part of cartridge screws by-pack assembly) to eliminate the problem where it occurs. +++++

and he followed:

+++++ Correct azimuth is a must and is determined by the position of the stylus in the groove and towards both walls. Thus a headshell level (spirit bubble or not....) has little to no use as Dougdeacon and Essentialaudio already mentioned correctly.
The problem has to be fixed at the source - you can not "correct" a misalignment of azimuth anywhere else in the chain - only at the stylus.
If the stylus is not 100% vertical in relation to the upper plane of the mounting cartridge body, you need a headshell which can be rotated in its axis - at least to some degree.

Its an imperfect world - thus we need alignments.... " +++++

and he followed:

+++++ " Sorry folks - azimuth-adjustment in real world conditions has to be (and can only be ..) done by the one single instrument most audiophiles seems do trust the very least.
The ear........+++++

but now he is in love with SME and with the today " perfect audio world where we don't need alignments"!!!!!! ( his words not mine. )

There are several other examples on these and other subjects with the same contradictory opinions in the same subject where Dertonarm try to defend or try to impose his opinion at any " cost ", including his own lose credibility. Of course that he did/do that always thinking that all of us are absolutely 100% " ignorants " but him that has the " light ".

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

Coming back to the universal acceptance of faulty produced cartridges - i.e. cartridges with a stylus not 90° dead center.
If any one reading this thread has had the experience lately ( the last years ...) that he/she/it bought a cartridge new in the shop, took it home, mounted it and found that it needed azimuth adjustment - I would like to know two things:

a) what was the "sonic" reason or evidence for the assumption that it was indeed a misplaced stylus which asked for azimuth adjustment ?

b) why wasn't it returned it to the dealer for refund/exchange but accepted "as is" ?

And - I don't mean cartridges bought second hand like "demo" sample or with "50 hours only - hardly broken in - as new !".

I have no doubt that a hell of a lot of cartridges out there do need azimuth adjustment NOW.
But they did not need it when they were "new out of the box".
They were raped, twisted and misaligned/-orientated by faulty set-up.
After 50 hours playing with way too high anti-skating no cantilever is orientated anymore the way it left the factory.
After 50 hours playing in a tonearm which has ledge and isn't level you certainly need azimuth to correct the now disorientated stylus.
These two aren't the only, but the 2 most prominent and frequent scenarios.

No - don't get me wrong.
I certainly accept that there are misplaced stylus out there which can still perform decent when the azimuth is corrected.
I just state that this can not/shall not/shall not be acceptable with a NEW cartridge.
Not on the price level we are talking about.
No one of us would accept this kind of product quality in any other part of his life ( well, maybe in countries where "quality" isn't really a common phrase ...).

By requesting azimuth adjustment in a tonearm we imply, that we either:

a) use cartridges which we bought second hand - and found out (surprise !) that they need adjustment in that plane.

b) do happily accept low quality control and faulty product for our cash.

c ) believe that this world is an imperfect one in the sense that a simple industrial stylus can't be glued/drilled/placed in place but by dump luck.
That in the times when laser guidance is long an industry standard.

Sorry - but that would mean being badly informed about the subject.
Which isn't necessary in the hey-days of the web we so widely use.

It is about whether I do accept an evitable product fault in the first or not.
It is only in the first matter, that the specific tonearm needs azimuth adjustment.

Dear Glai, Dear Tdaudio,

Thanks for your efforts to share with us your impressions about this tonearms.

Glay, as usual, you make perfect description. You are the man who clear say: "I tried both toneararms on my Raven AC, on my system and my impressions are the following...".

Tdaudio, I wish you to catch the Talea (or the new Virtu) and be able to compare it with 10.5 TW.

Luna, do you make your choice and how useful was this thread?

Happy listening.

Lyubo

Dear Dover, agreed - level of both platter and tonearm board is an issue in a good portion of turntables.
As we are dealing with pretty "small" (quantified in relative ..;-) ..) forces in tonearm alignment, full plane horizontal level is mandatory to ensure the absence of "parasite" forces which will alter the result and thus lead to misalignment.
Anti-skating rarely if ever is applied in any correct form.
Especially so, since skating force itself first is not linear over the groove AND depends on stylus shape, off-set angle and VTF.
Now add an armboard which isn't level ( I would estimate 90+% of all turntables out there ) and/or a turntable which' platter isn't level (talking about speed accuracy ...).

Key problem here is, that really a good bubble/spirit level is both - a bit more expensive but foremost: pretty heavy.
If you are looking for a precision aluminum level with say 0.6 mm/m accuracy for technical purpose, you are looking a something which itself already has a mass in excess of 1 lbs and is 8" long.
If you want to go further/do better - say 0.1 mm/m accuracy and a frame level which you can put nicely around the center of your platter and thus avoid leveling error by the instrument's mass - than we are talking US$500+ and a mass of 2.5-4.8 lbs with precision smoothed contact surface.
That will be accurate, but the sheer mass of the leveling instrument will falsify the result - at least on all turntables which are suspended with pretty low mass.
The spirit levels we see sold for audio purpose are only jokes.
A good way to go is the use of special architectural and measurement laser equipment which "draws" precise leveled lines on objects.
Thus armboards and platters can be leveled without additional mass.