Tonearm adjustments on the fly

I use a USB microscope also clearthinker but mostly to make sure the stylus is not way out of spec. The worse I've seen since I started using the microscope, which is a PITA by the way, was an AT cartridge. It was at 3 degrees in the wrong direction or 87 degrees. That is tracking the record.  I sent it back. The Soundsmith and Clearaudio cartridges have been very accurate and just setting the arm parallel to the record would be fine.

I have Pure Vinyl which is a Program I use to record records to the computer. It has digital RIAA correction which I have not had a chance to try because you need a phono stage that can bypass it's correction circuit. Anyway, I have recorded samples of the same record at various angles + - 2 degrees and you can AB them. I can not hear a difference on electrostatic speakers. Now we will hear that "digitizing the record changes it so you can't hear the difference" or "Your hearing probably sucks." I agree. You can't trust anyone's hearing. I do not trust my own which is why I like running these silly experiments. Digitizing the music at 24/192 is invisible. It sounds just like a turntable, warts and all.

millercarbon   excellent  

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In my opinion TriPlanar is ugly industrial design while the Reed 3p is pretty elegant (remind me of DaVinci tonearm a bit).

It is, but also features the hardest metal bearings used in any tonearm made worldwide. This allows the bearings to be adjusted so there is zero play, something you can't do with a jeweled bearing (lest it crack). So it has the least chatter and sticktion (I made that word up but you know what I mean) of any arm made. So while it might not win any beauty contests, it does get the job done. Of any arm I've tried and used it comes the closest to sounding like my master tapes.

Dear Chakster, I would not disagree for a moment that the Reed 3P is more beautiful than the Triplanar.  What's more, you can order one in different wood and metal finishes to suit your taste, like a car.  In my opinion, the Reed toneams are sonically competitive as well.  My only point was to challenge the notion that the Reed 3Ps azimuth adjuster was "the best".  It's very good, I'm sure, and does the job adequately.  Comparing my Reed 2A to my own Triplanar, built by Herb Papier nearly 30 years ago, I would have to say that the quality of the adjuster on the TP, taken as a tool only, is a bit higher than the one on the 2A.  The TP adjuster has a better "feel" and allows for finer movements up and down.  Tri, the current maker of the TP, has improved the adjuster on current manufacture TPs even above mine.  By comparison, the 2A is a bit coarse feeling. The 3P may be a different animal for all I know.
Mike L, Do you know what prompted Durand to switch from wood arm wands, the use of wood for which were at the heart of the company philosophy once upon a time, to other materials?  I have heard the Talea, Talea2, and the Telos on a neighbor's system.  My too brief listening impressions suggested to me that the Telos was not much of a sonic upgrade on the Talea 2.  In fact, I might have preferred the latter.  The Talea 2 with a UNIverse cartridge was memorable.  (Same turntable, phono, amps, and speakers in both cases.)  Of course, the cartridge mating is key.

Mike L, Do you know what prompted Durand to switch from wood arm wands, the use of wood for which were at the heart of the company philosophy once upon a time, to other materials? I have heard the Talea, Talea2, and the Telos on a neighbor’s system. My too brief listening impressions suggested to me that the Telos was not much of a sonic upgrade on the Talea 2. In fact, I might have preferred the latter. The Talea 2 with a UNIverse cartridge was memorable. (Same turntable, phono, amps, and speakers in both cases.) Of course, the cartridge mating is key.

Lew, initially Joel used the ’treated’ wood since it resulted in a better performance than the metal arm wands he tried. he did not start out intending to use the wood as a dogma. he did detailed finite element analysis along with all his listening and found wood the best choice.......and not because it was wood. i think he tried at least 100 different arm wands before settling for the specific treated wood he ended up with.

then later he switched to composite arm wands as they took him further. although some of his customers still order arms with treated wood arm wands. Joel is a music professor at the University of Washington which has lots of engineering support as well as all the materials science support related to the aerospace (Boeing). it helps that Joel is a (self taught) machinist as well as a mathematician.

as far as the Telos and Talea 1 and 2; the Telos demands a degree of set-up and ’feel’ that is considerable to extract all it can do. setting up the azimuth bridge and anti-skate exactly right is not plug and play. i’ve owned 3 Telos’s including the Telos Sapphire. and owned the standard Telos with the wood arm wand and composite arm. the Talea is a fine tonearm, and i could understand how it could surpass the Telos.

i also own the Durand Kairos (composite arm wand) which is a scaled down Telos. i use it on my EMT948 for stereo cutter head mono’s. it uses a composite arm wand. i slightly prefer that to the Talea.