Discuss The Viv Lab Rigid Arm

@intactaudio  : " If we don't accept the possibility that something outside our realm of experience might be better the chances of actually moving forward and learning are slim....""

The thread is about VIV tonearm and till now you posted no evidences/facts that could be the foundation of your statement.

Where are those evidences/facts/measurements?

Btw, even dirty stylus tip/LP grooves could cause mistracking and over 500 playing hour the stylus tip will shows an unevenly wear that could increment the normal mistracking.

R.

Dave, did you really intentionally direct that last post to me? So far as I know we are on the same side. And I fully agree with your sentiments about not being afraid to try new things. Until you joined the fray, I was the only one defending the possibility that the Viv tonearm might be any good, outside of all of those persons who own one and use it. All of those guys seem to like the tonearm. So what’s with the last post? I totally agree with your sentiments. My only point was that the reason perhaps not many purchase the very longest versions of the Viv tonearm may have more to do with fitting the tonearm to a turntable than zeal or lack of zeal for minimizing TAE.

Lew,  

the start of the response was to your point that many may use the 9" because it "fits"   I'm with you on the scientific approach of observing behavior and then trying to explain it rather than using theory to dictate behavior.

@rauliruegas 

Where are those evidences/facts/measurements?

When something fits the normal expected pattern of behavior all is well but in this case we have a fairly large break in that normal pattern of behavior when an arm with a nontraditional design establishes an observable pattern of people enjoying the results in spite of what most call an "obvious flaw"  One camp here explains this by calling the manufacturer a charlatan and suggest the consumers are suckers who obviously have no clue about what constitutes good audio.  They then proceed to parrot numbers and theories to support their opinions. The other camp here finds it interesting that he conflict exists and is intrigued to dig a bit deeper to see if there may be overlooked factors.  If you pick any topic in audio a proper technical argument can be made for and against it but at the end of the day it is an established pattern of observed behavior that sets the direction everyone travels.

@pindac 

Amen my brother!

WRT cutting level and mistracking, it seems there is not a good definition of what mistracking actually is.  My take is any movement in a direction not cut on the record is mistracking which means it is  constant occurrence from numerous causes.

When mastering an LP, and then playing back a problematic cut, what any engineer is looking for is that the pickup will make it thru the cut without any breakup or sense of strain; IOW breezes through and wonders what the fuss is about. 

But obviously the arm will have motion such that it will not always be directly above the cartridge as wished. Any offset is picked up by the cartridge as noise or coloration depending on the motion involved. To minimize that you simply have to do everything I previously described.

I suspect the longer arm, like any other longer arm, suffers the issue of greater mass. You may well need a cartridge of lower compliance. That issue alone (or cost...) is likely why the shorter arm is preferred. 

Dear @intactaudio : " it is an established pattern of observed behavior that sets the direction everyone travels. "

Problem is that that is not happening yet and could never happens.

Even your " ovservation " of mistraking with only two sample tonearms means almost nothing, I already explained.

In this thread that " observation " issue came from subjectivity gentlemans and not because I say it, this their way of thinking:

" 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. "

Do You think that an observer with good equilibrium objective/subjective can in any way trust on that even after " thousands of observations?, makes no sense at least to me.

R.