Discuss The Viv Lab Rigid Arm

Over on Vinyl Asylum, there was a congenial discussion of underhung tonearms back in 2018-19, in relation to the introduction by Yamaha of their GT5000 turntable which comes with a straight, underhung tonearm.  I kind of wish I knew then what I know now about the Viv, but you can read some thoughts on the pros and cons.  Interestingly, John Ellison, who is certainly a ranking guru, comes down on the negative side, but in an earlier post, not included here, he admitted that he very much liked the RS Labs RS-A1.  What I would say now to JE is that I am not comparing the Viv sound to that of hi-rez digital, which he often does with vinyl; I am comparing it to other conventional overhung tonearms.  And to my ears, the Viv might come a bit closer to the master tape/digital ideal of low distortion.

https://db.audioasylum.com/mhtml/m.html?forum=vinyl&n=1173526&highlight=viv+float&r=&search_url=%2Fcgi%2Fsearch.mpl%3Fforum%3Dcables%26searchtext%3DChoseal

@rauliruegas 

I'm still here Raul, enjoying the banter. 

@lewm 

Not that I should question your cleverness, but the only way I have ever been comfortable with an audio assessment is to do rapid AB comparisons. I have a new method which you will hate but @intactaudio will appreciate. If I want to compare two cartridges everything else in the chain has to be identical. I record both cartridges to my hard drive in 24/192 playing the same record. I can run both files at the same time and switch back and forth with the remote. You can compare any analog source this way.

Intactaudio, I recommend that people who have very small or no record collection at all should not get started in vinyl. It is problematic from a number of perspectives and silly expensive. It is for hobbyists like Lew, Raul and myself, people who already have insanely large vinyl collections who have to play them with something. We are like little old ladies around a little glass table at teatime discussing our medical issues. 

I made an error in my post of 10/27 at 3:10 PM. The TAE of a 9-inch UH tonearm would not range between +9 degrees and -9 degrees, while passing through TAE =0, because the radius of an LP at outer grooves vs inner grooves is so radically different. Because the radius at the inner grooves is much less than outer, making for a tighter smaller circle at the innermost grooves, TAE at inner grooves would be higher than it is at outer grooves, even when you align for a null at the midpoint of the playing surface. That consideration is what leads to the very complex equations for TAE derived by Lofgren and others. You can see this easily in the graphs posted above by Intact Audio (Dave). John Ellison posted graphs showing TAE for a 16-inch UH tonearm over on VA, perhaps included in the thread I referenced.  His graphs also show the effect. This is why the template for the Viv puts the single null point nearest to the innermost grooves, 90mm from the spindle. 

@lewm  and dear friends: Maybe many VIV owners not even who is J.Ellison and they need to find out that information.

Now, . Ellison posted in your link about the underhung Yamaha yonearm in the thread you started there, so it's an answer that he gave to you:

" The Yamaha straight arm is absurd. "

 He posted too something that I posted several time about my personal targets:

" I don't really care what it sounds like. I care only how it measures.

In other words, I want an audio system that will accurately reproduce the sound of the master tape. If additional distortion improves the listening experience, then I want that distortion added to the master tape. I don't want my audio system to add distortion.  "

His last statement/sentence  is my target but all what he said is just a true fact for people as mijos or me.

An his last post in that thread in different words is something I already posted here and from year now in several threads:

" I firmly believe that the people who prefer vinyl also prefer distortion.

It's really quite simple. If you have a reference recording and you make a vinyl copy of it that sounds different from the original, the difference is a result of distortion. We all know that vinyl sounds different because something can't sound better than something else unless it also sounds different.

I've made hundreds of measurements of vinyl test records and I know that the vinyl format produces significant measurable distortion. Therefore, I have no doubt that I'm listening to distortion when I listen to vinyl. That's what gives vinyl its distinctive sound quality.

Best regards,  "

Btw, that's why we " say " ( not me )  that vinyl has superiority to digital when it's theother way around. No pun intented.

lew, I really appreciated your link because that gentleman confirmed several of my posted believes in this forum.

R.

I am as familiar with JE's views as I am with yours.  Why can't you just go your own way, with my blessings, and know that there are other humans who think differently, on many matters related to audio, at least?  Like JE, you are replacing my comparison of the Viv tonearm to other conventional pivoted tonearms with a comparison of vinyl to digital.  I certainly readily concede that vinyl has more of various distortions than digital.  Happy?  Further, JE is calculating "distortion" using formulae that incorporate TAE as a determining parameter of distortion.  This is what is called a tautology.  Of course, if you make TAE a factor in the equation for distortion, then you will be finding that the more TAE, the more distortion. Like I also wrote above, in an earlier post, JE admitted that he liked the SQ of the RS Labs tonearm, based on LISTENING to it.