Hi Chris! I tried making photographs of the wiring - but the spot is too dark, and the flashlight messes things up – but I'll try again.
- It's funny you mention that (even) increasing vertical mass by minimizing & shifting the counterweight out on the I-beam improves bass. Ie. moving the vertical resonance down from a frequency above 12 Hz in many cases. Because "too low" resonance is much more a problem with vertical resonance, not lateral, as LP rumble is mainly a vertical problem – and you hear even there that lower is better. I don't doubt this!
How much less of a problem is a really high *lateral* mass within a certain safety range (not below 2-3Hz resonance)!
(Except that down there is a problem with magnetic flux with some MM and/or MI? cartridges I suspect and found - not with MC.)
- I think the quote of "lateral forces are .1 gm. compared to .2 gm on a conventional arm" refers to the forces exerted by wiring stiffness and skating forces, not to off-levelness of the arm.
If one doesn't want to exceed 0.2g lateral force one needs to set up the arm to a level precision of less than 0.2mm over a 100mm travel! It's no problem to level the arm as such - but the wire may exert a "correcting" force for an off-level arm, and changes this sideways force at a different place than where it was level. A bit of a case of luck with the original cabling, or wandering setup of the turntable base.
- The increased FM modulation with radial tracking goes back to the dynamically varying friction which dynamically varies skating force with modulation, different radius, different pressing / vinyl surface, and different aerosol deposits on the vinyl. With the straightline trackers are always tangential except LF resonance, off-levelness or other reasons for a slightly off-tangential cantilever. But this error angle is always much lower than with conventional radial arms with strong offset angles.
- This absolute offset angle is really much lower with the Thales arms, specially with the newest, the Thales Easy.
- It's funny you mention that (even) increasing vertical mass by minimizing & shifting the counterweight out on the I-beam improves bass. Ie. moving the vertical resonance down from a frequency above 12 Hz in many cases. Because "too low" resonance is much more a problem with vertical resonance, not lateral, as LP rumble is mainly a vertical problem – and you hear even there that lower is better. I don't doubt this!
How much less of a problem is a really high *lateral* mass within a certain safety range (not below 2-3Hz resonance)!
(Except that down there is a problem with magnetic flux with some MM and/or MI? cartridges I suspect and found - not with MC.)
- I think the quote of "lateral forces are .1 gm. compared to .2 gm on a conventional arm" refers to the forces exerted by wiring stiffness and skating forces, not to off-levelness of the arm.
If one doesn't want to exceed 0.2g lateral force one needs to set up the arm to a level precision of less than 0.2mm over a 100mm travel! It's no problem to level the arm as such - but the wire may exert a "correcting" force for an off-level arm, and changes this sideways force at a different place than where it was level. A bit of a case of luck with the original cabling, or wandering setup of the turntable base.
- The increased FM modulation with radial tracking goes back to the dynamically varying friction which dynamically varies skating force with modulation, different radius, different pressing / vinyl surface, and different aerosol deposits on the vinyl. With the straightline trackers are always tangential except LF resonance, off-levelness or other reasons for a slightly off-tangential cantilever. But this error angle is always much lower than with conventional radial arms with strong offset angles.
- This absolute offset angle is really much lower with the Thales arms, specially with the newest, the Thales Easy.