Tonearm adjustments on the fly
Kuzma 4P 11 and 14 comes with the VTA tower which can lower/raise the tonearm by rotating the VTA knob. Azimuth adjustment is done by unlocking/rotating the headshell. https://www.kuzma.si/media/uploads/files/IM%204POINT%2081126.pdf |
Audiomods Series Six arms have all of the above adjustment capabilities I believe. www.audiomods.co.uk Jeff at Audiomods is great to deal with and extremely knowledgeable. His arms are built to extremely high specifications and they work flawlessly I purchased a "Classic" Series three about 12 years ago and I have never "pined" for a better arm Regards - Steve |
Triplanar was the first to feature a precision veniered VTA adjuster, but before that there were several Japanese-made tonearms that offered less precise adjustment usually by turning a knob at the top of the vertical shaft (Victor UA7045 and 7082, for examples) or by rotating an adjuster lower down on the vertical pivot (Technics tonearms and FR64 and 66 tonearms with the B60 accessory, now available with Ikeda tonearms). Reed and some others copied the Triplanar design. Azimuth on the Triplanar is adjustable by a threaded screw in the horizontal plane that rotates the arm wand and locks it in place. It is not ideal to adjust azimuth by rotating the wand, because doing so simultaneously alters zenith, due to the effect of the headshell offset angle, but it works. |
I was wondering which tonearms allow for easy adjustments of VTA, SRA, azimuth, and such on the fly, i.e. without having to go through a lot of effort to make changes, like unscrewing a tonearm from the mount in order to raise the tonearm, etc. @washline The best of them is Reed, very few tonearms will give you azimuth on the fly option, vta on the fly is there too, so look for Reed 3p for example! The engineering of this tonearm is amazing, the build quality too. You can find some images of Reed 3p "12 in my old system here. Regarding vintage tonearms with such options: The best one (imo) is Lustre GST-801, but without azimuth on the fly (except for headshell with azimuth adjustment), however the VTA on the fly is there. Nice tonearms for a reasonable price nowadays! Technics EPA-100 (and EPA-100 mk2) is another great tonearm with VTA on the fly. For Fidelity-Research (and new Ikeda) tonearms we have to buy VTA on the fly base separately and this B60 (or IT-VTA-06) base alone costs more than the entire Lustre tonearm with VTA on the fly. Ikeda headshells will give you overhang and azimuth adjustment options. |
How can you know that the Reed device is the "best of them"? I own both a Reed 2A and a Triplanar. The Reed is indeed a great tonearm, but the adjuster on the TP allows for finer tuning, not that I think fine tuning is so important. I fully realize that later models of the Reed, e.g., the 3P, may have a more precision adjuster, compared to my 2A. Later models of the TP (mine is already 25 years old) offer even finer adjusting than mine. Anyway, the Reed adjuster is a straight up copy of the TP adjuster, not that there is anything wrong with that. There are a few other competitors we are not taking into account, like the Kuzma 4-point. We can't know which is "best"; they are all probably good enough for the purpose. I'd be more concerned about the rigidity of the locking mechanism, once proper VTA has been selected. I apologize if this sounds combative; I do not mean it to be taken that way. I am taking the "Joe Friday" point of view... "Just the facts, ma'am". |
