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Curved and Straight Tonearms

Over the last 40 years I have owned 3 turntables. An entry level Dual from the '70's, a Denon DP-52F (which I still use in my office system) and a Rega P3-24 which I currently use in my main system. All of these turntables have had straight tonearms. I am planning on upgrading my Rega in the near future. Having started my research, I have noticed that some well reviewed turntables have curved 'arms. My question: What are the advantages/disadvantages of each, sonic or otherwise? Thanks for any input. 
ericsch
nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 

Dear Lew, I thought that oil and grease are different ''animals''

 but I am not an expert in this domein of knowledge. However

I always try to be kind to you . That is why I deed not mention

Wagner in my last post. I know about your difficult upbringing

because your whole family was fond of Wagner. So you was

 probably forced to listen to even Wagner's soprananos. Curious

but true your love for music was reborn by a trumpet. I was always

wondering why this instrument is regarded as an ''musical

instrument'' but this is the best illustration of the truth of the

known saying ''one man poison...'', etc.

Now back to Wagner. All his opera's are recorded on at least

5 records. This way the Germans cheated me with at least 20

superfluous records because I needed to pay for them while

 those ''5'' could be easilly ''put'' on 4 records. That is if they used,

 say,Stevenson instead of Bearwald. I don't believe that much

imagination is needed to grasp that record companies prefer

to sell more records than less.

genesis168's avatar
genesis168
409 posts
 
Nandric, if you read my comments near the end I mentioned that I'm not for any type of alignment. I urge users to experiment themselves and not just look at numbers. My post was not that Stevenson was the only way to go but that Stevenson method did make some sense hence it was adopted by certain tonearm manufacturers. That was it. 



genesis168's avatar
genesis168
409 posts
 
For the record, I wasn't once on "that" post talking about the FR tonearms or the 231.5 PS point or the alignment on my system. Only talking about the Stevenson alignment in general that it made sense for what it was designed to do. 
nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 

Dear genesis, Either you also dislike Wagner or my Wagner

argument was not convincing. But if my Wagner argument make

sense  what sense then has Stevenson alignment? That is to say

if there is nothing on those ''at or near the end of the record''.

If you were an Wagnerian with all those superfluous records

in your collection you would have more empathy for my position.

Anyway for the financial kind.


larryi
4,038 posts
 
As a rough generalization, older records tended to be cut with grooves that went closer to the label.  As mastering engineers got better at altering groove spacing to match the groove modulation, more music could be packed into any given space, so the necessity of cutting close to the label went down.  Also, narrower profile styli (e.g., Shibata, van den Hul, other line contact) and other cartridge developments have made inner groove tracking less problematic.  That means that the issues Stevenson alignment addresses is less of a concern these days.
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