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Tri-Planar Vll "SE Upgrade"

Contemplating  sending my Tri-Planar Vll back to Tri Mai for his "SE Upgrade". Essentially, same carbon fiber wand and internal silver wire and leads used in his 12" U12 arm. Anybody done the dirty deed?  If so, better, worse or pretty much the same. 

I've only seen one post on the subject and that person seemed more than happy.

Thanks to anyone who responds with personal experience.  No conjecture please. 
128x128rfogel8
elinor's avatar
elinor
275 posts
 
Nandric I have no fear of trying a test record but honestly if I have a tonearm that tracks every record I own without issue with the exception of records I know to be imperfect so why would I need to resort to a test? This seems to be just another whacky thread which has driven me away from Audiogon forums. Signing off.


nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 

Elinor, By each cart manufacturer provide specifications among

which recommended VTF and tracking ability expressed in microns.

Say my Benz LP S claims 80 microns by 2g. My Ortofon Windfeld

even 100 microns with  2,6g. On the other side my Ikeda 9 c does

not claim anything but can't track more than 50 microns. As I wrote

in my previous post 50 microns is sufficient for ''normal records''.

But there are records which  are more demanding like those

Tchaikovski's cannon shots. Raul use this record to judge carts.

The most cart/tonearms combos will skip the third shot. The same

will happen with cart/tonearm combos by 60 microns if the combo

is not able to track more than 50 microns. I see that nobody care

to test his own combos but trust their hearing or intuition. Well I

check all my (new) carts with my test records first. That is before

listening to them. I was not able to confirm Windfeld but well

LPS . To be more specific I never got 100 microns ''pure'' nor

90 microns but well 80 microns with 2 g by LPS. I do those

tests with my FR-64 because this arm has removable headshell

such that changing carts is much more easy then by Triplanar

and other tonearms with fast headshells. So I was very much

surprised when my Triplanar ''refused'' to track 60 microns and

skipped the groove. This btw does no imply that the arm is defective

because there are many low complience carts wich can't track

more than 50 microns. But if whatever cart can track, say 70

microns , with my FR-64 but the same cart is not able to track

70 microns on my Triplanar I was curious to know why. That is

why I posted my specific question. To my surprise nobody

try the same experiment but invented all kinds of answers which

are irrelevant for my question.

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,753 posts
 

To my surprise nobody

try the same experiment but invented all kinds of answers which

are irrelevant for my question.

@nandric, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. ’Nobody’ is incorrectly used in your posts so far. ’Some people’ might be a lot more accurate as I suspect that not everyone who has a Triplanar has seen this thread!!

I don’t have any of the LPs to which you refer (having heard the 1812 far too many times I hope to never hear it again in my lifetime; I count myself amongst the privileged fortunate who have not heard the 1812 for over 2 decades and I’m going for a third). But I do have an LP mastering lathe and so far no matter the test tones we’ve cut the Triplanar has played them all without complaint and for that matter, every LP I’ve had except for one:

That LP has a lot of bass on it and is a recent pop recording. Now I’m used to playing pop recordings with quite a lot of bass, so I was upset that this particular LP was having troubles (although the usual signs of mistracking were not showing up). So I took it to the studio and studied the grooves under the microscope. Its quite obvious that the LP was overcut. That can cause distortion so I have discounted this particular title as not being a contender.

The way you’re making it sound is that there are possibly two titles in the world that the Triplanar won’t play. I have only about 8000 titles in my library so its highly likely that I won’t run into these titles (and if one of those involves the 1812 then we’re down to one) given how much music there is. These LPs don’t seem to be in the US for starters- so I would not jump to the conclusions as you appear to be doing! Do you know of a source for this test LP? I’d be happy to give it a shot as long its not cannon shots :) !
nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 

Atmasphre, I don't belive that I need lessons about the use of

quantifiers. I addressed the participants in this thread so my quantor 

''nobody'' does not include the whole universe but only members who

reacted to my post. You are also included because you also deed

not answer my question. My question was if the Triplanar can track

more then 50 microns on tracking ability test records. Among your

4000 records there should be some of those? In my answer to

pbnaudio I mentioned the test records which I used. BTW I deed

not say a single word about my Triplanar sound.  I only stated to

be surprised that MY Triplanar ''refused'' to track ''anything''

(aka ''any of my carts'') above 50 microns. So carts which can

track 80 microns with my FR-64 skiped out the groove by 60

microns on the Triplanar. My advice to you is to read careful

what other have written and not put your own inventions instead.

nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 

Well nobody (in this thread atmasphere) seem to think that those

tracking ability test are of any importance. But some of the members

concluded  that my Triplanar is defective. Why? Because my sample

 is not able to track more than 50 microns? But I own  MC carts

which also can't track more than 50 microns. However nobody (in

general atmasphere) would proclaim such carts as defective. 

Then, regarding manufacturers , why should they publish the tracking

ability values in their specs if those are of no importance at all?

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