Comparison of sonic qualities of some tonearms

@drbond +1 "So far, very few Audiogon members have expressed an ability to compare tonearms, which leads me to my conclusion: very few on this forum have actually compared tonearms, which rationally only leaves dealers, who, of course,” your observation is correct! (same applies to every other topic here as well) 

I'm sorry, Dr. Bond, but I seem to have missed the point. I sidetracked myself into a discussion about materials.

I think that we can all agree that a cartridge can only sound its best when it is held rigidly at the correct angles: tangential, VTA, and azimuth.

That means adjustment. The finer the adjustments, and the better they are maintained, the better the sound. So adjustability should be considered as well as rigidity and damping. IMO

@drbond There is some wisdom here if you listen close enough. None of us can compare every tonearm and there is no dealer that can compare every tonearm. Frankly, never trust a human who isw trying to sell you something.  But many of us have owned just about every type of tonearm out there and that adds up to a lot of experience. But, what a sound system or any piece of equipment sounds like when it comes down to the best equipment in a speaker/room that you like is more likely to be due to the relative humidity than anything. How a piece of equipment performs is a funtion of design and the factors that make a great design are accessible to anyone although some manufacturers may try to hide them. You have one of the very best turntables and one of the very best phono stages. All of the best arms and cartridges are going to sound similar, to normal people indentical. I have three top of the line cartridges and what amazes me more than anything is they sound way more alike than not. There was a day when the differences between cartidges semmed to be much greater. 

@rauliruegas , your experience with linear tracking arms matches mine. I only made the mistake myself once. There is no current line tracker that I would come close to considering. The Reed 5T and the Schroder LT are very differnt animals, they are pivoted tangential trackers and though there are some minor quibbles I do not see why they would not be excellent arms and perhaps even a step forward.  Had I a turntable that would fit one I would have a Schroder LT already. 

And by the way, when you are dealing with a 12 kHz waveform in the grove of a 33 1/3 RPM record, 1.4 degrees is a lot with modern stylus profiles that have a very narrow contact patch. But, as I said before I thing the real benefit is in no skating. 

@terry9

No need to apologize. Your first impression was more correct: different tonearms use different materials, andtheir sonic impact would be interesting to discern.  Of course everyone knows that you neeed to set up the tonearms properly with respect to VTA, etc.

@mijostyn

I have tried only two different tonearms (Schroder CB, and Reed 5A) on the Helix, and the differences are dramatic, so I would imagine that for just about all tonearms…I’ll try a third in the near future…

Reed 5A is the one that maintains tangency, is it not?  If it is, one would expect it to be different from the CB, of course. (Sorry for stating the obvious.)