Discuss The Viv Lab Rigid Arm

lewm

I do not view this discussion as a debate where there could ever be a true "winner". I champion the idea of an underhung tonearm as a novel idea that deserves some thought and attention.

Those are my thoughts exactly. Unfortunately, there are some users here who very much treat discussions as a battle where the adversary must be annihilated. They make absolute pronouncements, and then attack any person or product that conflicts with their personal gospel. It stifles conversation.

I have heard an RS Labs RS-A1 tonearm, because I own one. The fact that it does so many things directly against convention (besides the fact it’s underhung) and yet still sounds very good first started me thinking whether we should question some of our tonearm gospels. And I am still at that point.

Me too, but I’m a curious guy by nature. Even though I have no plans to change from the SME V arm I’ve enjoyed for decades and have never heard an underhung arm, I’d jump at the chance. It would be interesting to discover if I could hear any correlation between the sound and the unusual geometry.

Raul, I get your position vis a vis tube vs transistor.  You are entitled to it.  But you cannot seriously be thinking that the idea of an underhung tonearm is or ever was foisted upon us by the evil "AHEE", can you?  I hope not.  It's quite the opposite, as I think you know.  Not to mention that in the early days of SS, transistors were promoted heavily by the AHEE, as against the then prevalent tube devices, just because of the lower HD measurements, never mind that very low HD was achieved at the expense of tons of NFB.  It was only after about 10 years into the SS era that tubes made a comeback, partly because of Harry Pearson and TAS and partly because of Bill Johnson and his Audio Research.  Yes, I guess you could say that HP and TAS would come to personify the apocryphal AHEE, in the eyes of some.  Anyway, I think we have reached a point where we now have superb devices that use tubes and equally superb devices that use transistors.  There's room for both in the present audio universe.

@lewm 

There are 2 elements to the VIV Lab arm -

1. Zero offset headshell
2. Underhung geometry

What would be interesting would be to set the VIV Lab arm with 2 null points and straight headshell and compare that to the underhung geometry with straight headshell. Then we would get a more accurate picture of the "underhung" vs 2 null point impact on sound.

From my reading of the VIV Lab notes It would appear that the zero offset headshell has more impact on reducing skating forces than the underhung geometry.

From the posts thus far in this thread we have no idea of whether 1 or 2 above is the major factor in the VIV Lab sound.

From a review by Roy Gregory

Cartridge setup and the RF7 CB: an extended exercise in patience

When it comes to cartridge alignment and tuning tonearms, it’s always a long, intricate and tedious process that demands considerable patience and benefits from considerable experience. In one respect, the RF7 CB and other Rigid Float 'arms are no different. However, they do bring a new level of frustration to the exercise, partly as a result of their mechanical execution and partly through their very nature.

For once, actually aligning the cartridge is simplicity itself. But challenges start when you try to set azimuth and tracking force. Despite ViV Lab’s claim that the pivot point of the bearing is fixed, there is a small amount of play in any given direction. When it comes to setting tracking force, moving the counterweights is enough to displace the 'arm (albeit very slightly) backward or forward. The movement is tiny, but it is enough to affect the downforce. Even cueing the 'arm will influence fore and aft location and hence the measurement of tracking weight. What this means is that those tiny adjustments in downforce are not repeatable -- because the displacement of the 'arm invalidates the resulting reading. Check the tracking force; raise the 'arm using the cueing lever; drop the 'arm again and you’ll get a different reading. If you are using a stylus balance that measures hundredths of a gram, the chances of getting any sort of consistent reading are almost nil. That wouldn’t be a problem except that the thread on the counterweights is coarse and the fit of the weights themselves is quite loose, so making small, angular adjustments of the multiple weight stack is also extremely difficult and imprecise. Now factor in the adjustment of azimuth, which suffers from the same geometrical variation and arm-height adjustment which, with no threaded adjuster or scale can be described as crude at best, while also risking displacement of the ‘arm’s base, and you have exactly the kind of moveable feast that makes setup a potential nightmare.

Question? Is the setup very frustrating? Can VTF be dialed in accurately and consistently?

Dear @rsf507  : I could think that you already know that the recording/playback overall process is full of imperfections and trade-offs.

Could you share which is your target doing that question? or maybe you already have the answer.

R.