Reed 5T Opinions

@larryi, Of course they would say that. I have a relatively cheap USB microscope and I can see the long axis on modern extreme styluses such as the Gyger S. I do not have a measurement grid so I have to ball park it and since you can not see the cantilever you have to make sure it is perfectly aligned in the field which with a decent stage is not that hard. If the styluses i currently own have an error I am confident it is less than 1 degree. If I bought a cartridge that had a significant zenith error I would not be sending it to Wally Tools. It would be going back to the manufacturer as defective.

@lewm , quite correct in an offset arm but in these arms the wand is straight so little to no skating force is generated. More bearings are always a liability as you suggest which is why I prefer the Schroder LT. It has normal vertical and horizontal bearings and a magnets control the position of the single secondary horizontal bearing.  I would have gotten the Schroder LT but it requires a turntable that takes a 12" arm. The only table I am interested in that will do that is the Dohmann Helix but I refuse to waste money having to buy the vacuum up-grade when it is released if ever. If not then I am not interested. I am toying with the idea of modifying the Sota's plinth for the LT but in order to get an idea of what it would take I would have to have an LT in hand meaning I would have to buy one. That is a pretty big leap for something you might not be able to do.

@dover that is not the way it works dover. The motor is running continuously and the laser is pinpoint. It simply adjusts the motor's speed. If you look at the arm wand it's vertical and horizontal effective mass is virtually identical. In the case of your arm it is wildly different. What this amounts to is a very low horizontal resonance point. Your arm bounces across the record at 2-3 Hz. You can stop this with damping but then you generate reverse skating. In short, It is a terrible design.

@mijostyn 

Your arm bounces across the record at 2-3 Hz. 

I assume you are talking about the Eminent Technology ET2.

How do you come to this conclusion.

I think you could do zenith with a regular USB by first aligning the cantilever horizontally or vertically in the field of view, and then changing the focus to look for the contact edge.  It would be even easier if the USB is capable of taking multiple images at different focal points and then integrating the images to get something that has a good depth of field, but, those scopes are about $1500 or more.  If you know the alignment of the cantilever, even if you cannot see it, you can see the stylus orientation and that would give you some idea about the zenith error.  I am sure an even fancier scope, would make this easier.

I sort of prefer not really knowing all of these things.  While I have a Fozgometer, I don't really use it that much.  I prefer to align the stylus visually to be perpendicular to the record surface.  If this is not electrically ideal with regard to crosstalk, I still rather do my records the kindness of having the stylus fit the groove properly.  VTA/SRA I set by leveling the cartridge and then listening to changes in the angle to find the right spot.  Basic alignment I do with a Smartractor.  This is more or less good enough for me.  I think record playing is robust enough to survive even rough alignment.

Mijo, if you re-read my post I did qualify my remark about skating force with the phrase “in a conventional pivoted tonearm”, which the 5T, 5A, LT, Thales, etc, are not.

This bit about zenith is fun, and it probably does show us another way in which vinyl is flawed. Now I will go back to ignoring it and enjoying the music. For a perfectly constructed cartridge in a perfect conventional overhung pivoted tonearm, zenith can be perfect for only two brief moments, at each of the two null points. Zenith is a correllary of tangency. For those who really want to fret about zenith, the only solution is a perfectly set up linear tracking tonearm. I don’t own one of those. The definition of zenith that I am using is: correct zenith occurs when a line drawn from one contact point through the other contact point on the stylus tip,if extended will pass through the center of the spindle. And, by the way, even a perfectly set up linear tracker won't get you to perfect zenith, if the stylus was not mounted square with the cantilever, and if the cantilever is not perfectly straight. (Well, to some degree you can correct for a bent cantilever by twisting the cartridge body.)