Gimbal vs unipivot tonearms

Dear friends: I'm with @mijostyn conclusion in this specific regards.

I owned several unipivots and I still have one from Grace and what for me is the best unipivot: Satin and I think that I still have one from Stax ( I think is unipivot. ). I owned Moerch, Audiocraft and other, not any more.

I have to say that under specific and controled circumstances  Unipivots could sound pretty decent.

Normally I don't recomend to any audiophile that can goes with unipivot tonearms.

The real problem with unipivots is not only what we can " see " but what we can't " see " and that's happening at microscopic land down in the cartridge/tonearm grooves tracking where the stylus tip it's figth really hard against the grooves thatneeds to track and where in motion that stylus tip is disturbed for very strong developed forces in almost all directions along all the LP imperfections.
To achieve a decent job down there that stylus tip needs stability, the kind of stability a gimball tonearm can gives to it and that an unipivot can't.

Normally the LP grooves are recorded at different velocities depening of the score and in the high velocity grooves the stylus tip is literally jumping ( sometimes we listen that distortion level and sometimes we don't but exist. ) an unipivot only makes things worst.
Gimball tonearm permits to avoid that " behavior "? certainly not but helps in better way to that cartridge stylus tip to track in way better way and this is very important when we listen the reproduced sound by that cartridge.

Someone measured what happens down there and its differences between using a gimball tonearm against an unipivot? not that I know about.


The kind of question like in this thread in reallity it's open to each one way of thinking.

My experiences in " hundreds " of systems tells me gimball is the road to go " safety ".


Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

@rauliruegas , you can't possibly agree with me! That will make you a marked man for sure. Everyone will think you are an arrogant SO who thinks he knows everything. You sure you want to do this?

No really, thanx for the support. Geniuses think alike:-)

Sounds like for most people, gimbal is the way to go, which is probably why the most practical company, Rega, uses that design exclusively for the best value in tonearms.

I never understood the appeal of the hard to handle, wobbly unipivot, but for some people it can sound better and is worth the trouble I guess. 

Like everything else in this hobby, it's a matter of what you're willing to do or spend to get the last couple % of improvement you perceive.  

A couple contributors here have written unipivot arms off, and I have also. Although my dream table is an SME, they don't mention gimbal or unipivot in their Series V arm description. I guess it is a modified unipivot?

Btw, this is the " down there " I’m talking about:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYE67fVny4c&list=RDCMUCMdOWi6nBZJ3Q0tHNQIOUVA&start_radio=1&rv=mYE67fVny4c&t=0

Don't go directly from the link but paste the link and then google it.

R.

Classic SME tonearms used a "knife-edge" bearing, which is definitely different from a unipivot but does allow for some "chatter".  Mijostyn mentioned this in responding to Elliot's erroneous suggestion that his older SME tonearm was a unipivot.  As I understand it, modern SME tonearms (like the IV and the V, maybe) have either done away with the knife-edge principle or have modified it to make it more stable, similar in philosophy to what Graham and Kuzma have done to stabilize the pivot bearing on tonearms that started out as unipivots.  I own a RS Labs RS-A1 tonearm that is a very crude unipivot, and 7 other tonearms that are gimbal type. Also, I used to own the British tonearm that used a mercury bath to establish electrical continuity between the arm wand and the base; I can't recall the brand name, but I am guessing Keith Monks.  With all its faults (and the danger of mercury exposure), that tonearm had a kind of airy quality that was pleasing.  So too does the RS Labs, which performs way above its very oddball design. However, I confess it is not in use at this time.