Recommendations for a tonearm upgrade on a VPI Classic 4 turntable

I think you will be very happy with the Fatboy gimbaled. I replaced my uni for the gimbaled on my Prime Sig and love it. Respect, Joe

Greetings Everyone!

First and most importantly, Happy Mother's Day!  Call your mom!

Second, I mounted the Fatboy gimbaled tonearm yesterday.  I would say that I am 95% of the way to a perfect alignment of tonearm and cartridge (Dynavector XV-1s) at this point, but it's definitely good enough to provide some preliminary thoughts.

First of all, the Fatboy gimbaled was a joy to set up compared to my 3D unipivot arm.  In particular, azimuth and tracking force were a breeze.  

Sound wise, I'm really blown away.  I'm not sure if the tonearm actually sounds that much better, or if the ease in alignment is allowing me to get more out of the DV XV-1s, but either way, the improvement is readily apparent.  The first thing I noticed was the utter lack of sibilance. I've always struggled with sibilance because I am a sucker for really detailed cartridges.  Getting proper alignment of the XV-1s is critically important so this improvement might have more to do with relative ease in alignment of the Fatboy gimbaled compared to my previous arm.  But either way, it is a HUGE improvement.  

Every aspect of the sound is improved.  Even my wife noticed a difference when I played a few of her favorite tracks last night. 

All of that being said, I do have one major complaint: I cannot figure out how to set the anti-skate on this darn thing.  I'll leave that for another thread, but good grief, twisting a wire, really?  And the fishing line do-hickey thing is completely unreliable and inconsistent.  Of course, I had the exact same issues with the 12" 3D tonearm, so nothing new there.

Thanks again for all of you that helped me with this decision!  Happy listening!

Cheers,
TMQ

The wire twist is wrong.....when the wire relaxes (every temp. change) the force will be different.   I have the a/s gizmo....I just wonder what the sound difference is between perfect a/s (no such thing) and no a/s at all.