I already said twice: an unipivot characteristic is its aliveness that in reality is higher distortion, you can’t do nothing about.

This is hilarious - the funniest comment I've seen this year.

Of course most cartridges have a cantilever that is by definition a unipivot.

Perhaps the author should stick to digital where everything is only a little bit out all of the time.

 

Dear @dover : " I’m not talking of " control of energy ..." but about how that " superior control in unipivot vs gimball " is sensed by the cartridge cantilever with its negative effects vs gimball.

 

The FCL designer posted and I pasted here:

 

"""

The classic unipivot tonearm can sound quite good but has some serious drawbacks. First of all, we never could get used to the handling of the wobbling ........ Another, often OVERLOOKED POINT IS THE FACT,THAT ALL THE ENERGY FROM THE TONEARM IS DERIVED AT THIS TINY POINT ( bearing. ) INTO THE TONEARM BASE. THE ENERGY THAT A CARTRIDGE TRANSFER INTO THE ARM WAND when playing an LP IS ENORMOUS and THE ENERGY TRANSFER AT THE BEARING POINT IS VERY CRITICAL. "

 

So the feedback goes to the cantilever with that same energy along other developed " movements " that develops higher kind of distortions.

You don’t like Technics but other than the AT 1100 has the lower friction bearing levels that any non-unipivot tonearm and not even a bat can hear that " rattling " you are talking about .

 

In the other side your stupidity levels gone higher when posted:

 

" most cartridges have a cantilever is by definition unipivot "

 

for me your statement is not an hilarious one but the stupidity of the century when you are comparing it against the arm unipivot. Think a little of that stupid comparison Certainly makes sense to you and as usually and as @mijostyn posted talking of one of your post s you act with some audiophiles as he and specially me where always try to hit in any way but unfortunatelly you never have success and you never will.

 

R.

 

Wow @dover you really pissed @rauliruegas off! 

You can not compare a cantilever to a unipivot. Let me see if I can explain this.

A gimbal tonearm has two degrees of freedom, vertical and horizontal. Consequently it has two resonance frequencies vertical and horizontal. Proper management of the tonearm's effective mass versus the compliance of the cartridge to get these resonance points at a frequency that does not effect either the sound or the function of the arm. A unipivot arm has a third degree of motion, torsional and consequently a third resonance frequency which will always be higher but of lower magnitude. None the less it will always f--k up the bass. Unipivot arm designers have gone to great lengths to control this. Graham uses opposing magnets and Basis uses a secondary bearing. These designs raise the torsional resonance above the audio range. 

Properly adjusted bearings are slightly preloaded. They do not rattle unless it is a crappy arm or someone has played with the bearing adjustment. The lowest possible friction is less important than tight control of the cartridge so that the arm can control all the cartridges energy and pass it on to a higher mass were it is dissipated, namely the turntable. This is the reason to have a massive tonearm board solidly mounted to a heavy chassis. Today the best arm/ cartridge/ turntable combinations are extremely quiet. It is very difficult to hear any "needle talk." 

In short, the basic unipivot arm is a cheap, easy way to build a junk tonearm. Certain individuals which I shall not name even tried to sell their cheap junky unipivot arm without antiskating trying to convince everybody that it sounded better without it. The majority of us almost died laughing. The fact that many people seem to think they sound great is just a matter of inexperience. If you do not know what great sounds like you can not know what less than great sounds like. Many of us have never heard a truly great system. (I include the room in my definition of system) I had not heard one until about 15 years into my audiophile career and that was a real ear opener. Knowing what is possible gives one direction. 

So I know nothing about tonearm design BUT I can say I agree with @mijostyn that the room plays a huge amount of good sound. I've been at homes that have over 500k of gear that sounded horrible, not b/c of the equipment but it was the room

 

@rsf507 isn't that something!  And, it is not an uncommon problem. Many give little thought to the room and frequently put the system in a situation were all it is good for is background music. I have a friend with Magico S7s and they sound glorious but, the system is not imaging. I am pretty sure it is a room problem. Next time I get over we are going to take some measurements and play around with acoustic tiles. I am certain we can fix it.