Recommendations for a tonearm upgrade on a VPI Classic 4 turntable

I had the same azimuth problem with a JMW arm.  It needed  adjustment every few weeks.  In the end it turned out to be the teardrop cw was the culprit.  I moved to an Espressimo Audio half moon and could go 4 - 5 months.  Still too fiddly though.   Also, weep, warp and wobble are not uncommon with the 3D.  

When I ordered my Classic 4, I had a new SME 312s sent to VPI to have it installed. The arm sounds excellent but after having lived with it for three years, I have the following minor criticisms:
1) VTA adjustment is imprecise and not doable on the fly.
2) I found azimuth adjustment very difficult to get right. When you tighten the head shell screw, it can twist a tiny amount, which is enough to have to readjust.
3) The arm rest height adjustment requires a tiny Allen wrench, supplied, but it is difficult to contact the hidden screw. I think the screw head is now stripped.

But sonically its probably hard to beat. I find the damping paddle to be very beneficial. I filled the trough up to the top, which has greatly improved imaging and smoothness.

whitestix:

Wow, that story about your cat makes me very depressed. I think if a cat jumped on my turntable and fragged my Dynavector that I would be having roast cat for dinner.  Probably a good thing that don't have cats.  I do have a 10 year old kid, and when he was 7, he and a friend somehow managed to knock over one of my PSB towers.  It fell towards my previous turntable, but hit the corner of the rack and was diverted.  Aside from a sizable dent in the side of the PSB, nothing was damaged. Otherwise, I think I might have had roast kid for dinner that night. Actually, the looks on those boys' faces when I came into the room was almost worth the dent in my PSB.  Eyes as big as onions!  I've never seen two kids that scared!

stereo5:

I think that "creepy" is a pretty good descriptor.  I would also add "stressful".  I've never gotten used to how that unipivot bounces around. I know that they can sound great, but they are not for me.

stringreen and gpgrblu:

Thank you for the suggestion of the Counter Intuitive.  I think if I had seen this a year ago I would have bought it on the spot.  The fact that there is a market for a device like this reinforces my view that unipivots like this one are really hard for some of us to get used to.

Thank you one and all for your very helpful responses.  I bit the bullet and purchased the gimbaled Fatboy yesterday, but it won't arrive until sometime next week.  Normally I would have wanted it to arrive before the weekend, but nowadays it doesn't really matter because my wife and I are working from home and home schooling our 10 year old (for those of you reading this in the future, we are in week 6 of the coronavirus crisis). Basically, everyday is a weekend day if I want it to be, and weekends can become work days if they need to be.  I can barely remember what day it is any more!

Cheers everyone!
TMQ  

I think you will be very happy with the Fatboy gimbaled. I replaced my uni for the gimbaled on my Prime Sig and love it. Respect, Joe

Greetings Everyone!

First and most importantly, Happy Mother's Day!  Call your mom!

Second, I mounted the Fatboy gimbaled tonearm yesterday.  I would say that I am 95% of the way to a perfect alignment of tonearm and cartridge (Dynavector XV-1s) at this point, but it's definitely good enough to provide some preliminary thoughts.

First of all, the Fatboy gimbaled was a joy to set up compared to my 3D unipivot arm.  In particular, azimuth and tracking force were a breeze.  

Sound wise, I'm really blown away.  I'm not sure if the tonearm actually sounds that much better, or if the ease in alignment is allowing me to get more out of the DV XV-1s, but either way, the improvement is readily apparent.  The first thing I noticed was the utter lack of sibilance. I've always struggled with sibilance because I am a sucker for really detailed cartridges.  Getting proper alignment of the XV-1s is critically important so this improvement might have more to do with relative ease in alignment of the Fatboy gimbaled compared to my previous arm.  But either way, it is a HUGE improvement.  

Every aspect of the sound is improved.  Even my wife noticed a difference when I played a few of her favorite tracks last night. 

All of that being said, I do have one major complaint: I cannot figure out how to set the anti-skate on this darn thing.  I'll leave that for another thread, but good grief, twisting a wire, really?  And the fishing line do-hickey thing is completely unreliable and inconsistent.  Of course, I had the exact same issues with the 12" 3D tonearm, so nothing new there.

Thanks again for all of you that helped me with this decision!  Happy listening!

Cheers,
TMQ