@rauliruegas sorry but I am not interested in nor do I want to understand all the theories. All that interests me is the music and how it sounds to my ears, and to me I enjoy what the Viv Labs brings to my system.
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And as much as I publicly denigrate unbelievable tweaks and hacks, if something is not easily measured, our own ears have to decide. We remember, most of us, that ears are affected by psychoacoustics. And even if you can't measure the effect of a device, it can be shown to be effective in a double blind trial. This tonearm pitches one source of distortion, tracking error, against another, anti-skating force. It should be relatively easy to come to some kind of consensus as to which of those factors hurts the sound we hear most. Should we not be testing that in a double blind fashion? |
Raul, You wrote, "VIV comes with no off-set angle and with a TAE of around 10° and due that only exist one null point the TAE 90% of the time is truly nearr to those 10°..." That’s just not true at all. Only at the extremes of the arc the tonearm makes across the surface of the LP would the TAE reach its max error of 10 degrees. And please may I remind you for the second time that the "10 degrees" data point comes from the Yamaha engineer in reference to the Yamaha underhung tonearm mounted on their GT5000. For the Viv or any other underhung tonearm, the TAE would be zero at the single null point, which you can choose to place anywhere on the playing surface when you choose where to mount the tonearm. As the arm moves toward its single null point, TAE is gradually and pretty near linearly decreasing from its max at the outermost grooves to zero. Once the stylus moves past the null point, then TAE gradually increases to whatever its max value (now in negative degrees, because the angle is opposite in direction) at the run-out groove. I don’t recommend it, but I think the Viv comes in assorted lengths out to at least 11 inches and maybe to 14 inches, where the max TAE values would be way lower than 10 degrees. So if TAE is such a problem, one might consider the longer versions. Earlier, I asked you to cite the reference you quoted in your post describing the logic of conventional tonearm geometry. Can you do that, please? If so, thanks a lot for your effort in doing that research. Dogberry, TAE is not per se a "distortion". It’s a geometrical error; we know that distortion arises therefrom, but how much and of what quality and what consequence to our SQ, that is up for debate. For example, if we perseverate over TAE, then what can we also do about errors in zenith. A stylus that is not exactly symmetrically mounted on the cantilever can add up to +/-5% to TAE and can also eliminate null points, unless one accounts for it. |
@alan60 , I am totally and completely comfortable in my position. My goal is to keep others from making the same mistake. You obviously are resistant to buyer's remorse. I would not buy a Viv arm like I would not buy a tricycle all terrain vehicle. The only difference is the Viv is not dangerous. But please do not feel bad. You are in very good company. In my youth I purchased some seriously stupid equipment like the Transcriptors Vestigial Tonearm, live and learn. People have to get off this listening thing. You can not trust what other people hear because there is way too much variability in system and listening performance. Unless you are very well seasoned you can not even trust yourself. This is also not about music. We all love music or we would not be doing this. This is about system performance and design issues that make for a competent device. I am not going to beat around the bush when I see an obviously defective design. Because some people think it sounds good means absolutely nothing to me. |
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