Discuss The Viv Lab Rigid Arm

Dear @intactaudio and friends: The link you posted shows only that it’s the first time that that distortion was measured.

Rigth from the begin of the digital medium/CD almost all started to talk about the CD jitter and almost at the same time some of us started too to speak of anlog tracking jitter and not only that but between other audiophiles I started too to post several times through the years that trtuose cartridge ridding road named " Hymalaya Mountains " where the jitter and the Himalaya we just can’t avoid in any way: it’s main part of the LP/cartridge imperfections. Never was measured but it’s almost useless when not only each LP but each LP track measures different.

Well, those truly high distortions that are part of the " game " never were detected by us are just added colorations that we all like and that we can’t avoid.

The cartridge/tonearm alignments is something different that obviously does not measures those, the alignment only measures the additional tracking distortions as an effect in pivoted non LT tonearms and that’s why exist that overhag and offset angle. NO the alignments were not calculated to help with other issues as the off-centered cartridge stylus/cantilever because that responsability is of the cartridge manufacturers that need to way improve its QC.

Around 20 years ago I started to develop a " trusty " comparison whole proccess tests that through those years was up-graded/up-dated several times where I always use the same LP tracks that I know better than the fingers of my hands and I don’t use all the track because depending of what I’m testing msometimes I listen 20 seconds on one track and the like.

That proccess permits me to know what to look for and that’s why I can detect that overhang or offset-angle at some pointand some SPL. With out know what to look for detectionof those kind of distortions is to difficult to do it.

Btw, sometimes the alignment tracking distortions are developed at lower SPL that the one need it to detect it.

So all the satisfied VIV owners are " deaft " , ceratinly not and it’s not that their room/system has a poor level resolution. No, my take is that each one of them comparison proccess is not good enough to detect those alignment developed distortions. That’s all.

Btw, @lewm , the gentleman that did the analysis in your link posted there:

" Any arm not being designed according to one of these two approaches, produces higher tracking distortion than necessary and should be disregarded.  ""

Overall is an extreme complex issue.

R.

Raul, I saw his comment, too.  Let the author defend it.

I found this interesting treatise on tonearm alignment in the context of a review of the Triplanar tonearm by Dick Olsher, which appeared in S'phile. If you read it to the end, his comments on the consequences of TAE are of note.  He also brings in skating force.

https://www.stereophile.com/tonearms/the_tri-planar_tonearm/index.html

@lewm  : He has or posted nothing that needs " defend " it.  He, as some of us, is spot on the whole issue.

Your latest posts seems to me that posted to justify in some way that you are satisfied with the wrong VIV tonearm but due that you like it you don't need to justify nothing to others but only maybe to you.

Again, the issue to have a self developed test/comparison " bullet proof " whole proccess is critical to detect any errors elsewhere and your proccess showed is not good enough to detect what is obvious and same for the other owners.

I know that almost no one cares about that test proccess but it's critical for any gentleman that think is a MUSIC lover an audiophile.

With out that test proved proccess you don't know what to look for, so you can't detect even what's obvious and is not your culprit but that proccess you have.

R.

Dear Raul, I often have a problem to figure out in what way you are questioning my opinions or abilities, because of the language barrier.  In this case, it seems you are saying that I am incapable of discerning what are to you and some others obvious issues with the Viv Float tonearm, because I don't have a "test proved process" to use as a basis for comparison.  Based on your past statements, going all the way back to the MM thread, I gather that you worked very hard to develop ways to test new equipment or program material by training yourself as a listener.  To my knowledge, you don't actually use test instruments to collect data, and you don't do a formal analysis of yours or anyone else's data to draw conclusions.  In the end, you rely upon your trained ears.  Perhaps you are exposed to quantitative analysis in some cases through your association with Jose'.  If so, I don't recall your ever bringing such information to Audiogon Forums.  All that said, and even assuming you are a better "listener" than I am, you have no experience with any underhung tonearm, so far as I know.  I have made the empirical observation that the Viv Float tonearm (and the RS-A1) sounds "good", better than one might ever expect based on theory as we have come to know modern tonearm theory.  And in some respects, the Viv is revealing in ways that other tonearms do not often achieve.  I have made no claim that the Viv is "the best" tonearm or that it is even "better" than good pivoted tonearms with overhang.  My 45 years of experience as a bench scientist tell me that when one gets a surprising result in an experiment, it is time to pay attention to those surprising data, because understanding what happened can sometimes lead to important alteration of one's belief system.  Here I am merely trying to understand why the Viv sounds so good with a variety of cartridges.  Since you have never heard it, you have no status in this discussion.  We all know in what ways  it defies convention.  That does not explain its goodness.  Meantime, you are welcome to read the discussion here, such as it is, but your criticism of my qualifications adds nothing.  At least I own and listen to the tonearm you so dislike, probably without ever having seen one in the flesh.

As to your inference that I cannot be a MUSIC lover, that's insulting.  So I see that you took your usual tack at the end of your post which is to suggest that my shortcomings are not my fault; they are merely due to a defecive "process".  Anyway, I posit that anyone who listens to music every day or plays an instrument, and who attends live concerts, and who says he or she is a music lover, IS a music lover. Most music lovers stay away from this Forum for good reason.