Discuss The Viv Lab Rigid Arm

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.

@intactaudio Your statement certainly was attuned to endeavours I have been loyal to.

A Long response, I know, but not too long for a 30 year summary. 

It could have easily been a Calendar that was required to time the read 😂.  

@atmasphere 

The metric that needs to be discussed here is the lesser of the two evils which makes us wander into the land where ears become the ultimate arbiter.  At that point individuals are allowed to have differing opinions and the vast majority here are respectful of others who have taken parallel paths.

Any offset is picked up by the cartridge as noise or coloration depending on the motion involved.

I see two possible situations here.  Lets assume a 3° Zenith error at a given point on record.  In the case of a traditional tonearm rigidly fixed in all but the lateral and vertical planes, the misalignment will cause a force in a direction that the tonearm is prevented from moving so it will need to be transferred to a direction that movement is possible which will come at some sonic penalty.  Now consider the same situation with a tonearm that allows 'some' movement in a third direction.  I'll agree that this will also add some sonic penalty as you describe but also see the possibility that it could be a much more benign penalty than in the first situation.   Now take this a bit further to the extreme of a severely misaligned cartridge and we have the discussion at hand.  The idea of mistracking reminds me of the mike tyson quote “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”  Thinking you are going to have a setup that won't mistrack is akin to planning on getting into the ring and not getting hit.

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. 

Oh boy.... there is another can of worms in audio that needs to be re-examined.   I presume you are referring to the tonearm resonance.  Everyone here should go ahead and add weight to the headshell to double the effective mass of their tonearm and see if their resonant frequency changes by the predicted factor of 1.4.  

@rauliruegas 

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.

Can you give me one "objective fact" in audio that is not firmly based on a solid foundation of subjective experiences?

dave