Discuss The Viv Lab Rigid Arm

Dear Reimarc, Thank you for this report. You or a member of your family must speak Japanese, because in my indirect dealings with Akimoto-san, I learned that he does not communicate well in English. Nevertheless, I too bought my Viv directly from Akimoto-san under the auspices of my son, who has lived in Tokyo for about 18 years and is fluent in all aspects of the Japanese language. Like you, my son also found Akimoto-san to be a very nice, soft-spoken, and humble man. His character also came through to me in the context of short emails he and I were able to exchange directly. Apart from our shared appreciation of the Viv tonearm, we have in common the fact that I too am a (retired) scientist (in my case an MD molecular biologist/virologist), and I too have my Viv mounted on the deck of a Lenco. Mine is an OEM Lenco except I threw away the plinth, the bearing, and the tonearm and mounted the remaining parts in slate (which was in vogue at the time among gurus on Lenco Heaven). I also use a PTP top plate and a huge aftermarket bearing made in England (by a guy I only remember as "Jeremy"). I drive the motor with a Phoenix Engineering power supply controlled by the PE Roadrunner tachometer. The platter has been painted externally with vibration-reducing paint and further damped by O-rings around its perimeter. (The idea for that came direct from the late, great Win Tinnon.) One virtue of the tonearm is the very functional cue-ing device, about as good as any I have ever experienced. Also, I have never had a problem with setting VTF. I wonder what model of Viv you chose. I have the aluminum 9-incher, aka the "9HA". I have never been a fan of carbon fiber in audio, with the exception of carbon fiber headshells. For several cartridges, I use Yamamoto or Oyaide carbon fiber headshells in lieu of the Viv Nelson Hold headshell. The Lenco ensemble drives a Manley Steelhead which drives the built in direct-drive amplifiers of Beveridge 2SW speakers supplemented below 80Hz with a pair of Transmission Line woofers.

Raul, Please convey my apologies to the Lofgren family for any perceived but unintended insult, but I also do not think it is insulting to Lofgren to point out that his work was primarily aimed at solving the geometry problem of how to minimize TAE while using a pivoted tonearm of manageable length. His solution is to offset the headshell at an angle. Is it not otherwise accurate to say that he did not envision modern stereo LPs nor modern exotic stylus shapes? Lofgren was working with the technology he had in front of him in 1939 or thereabouts.  No sin in that. Puh-leeze! It's rather ironic that you take offense on behalf of Lofgren, considering that you have insulted so many living, breathing audiophiles on these forums, intentionally or not. (I love you anyway, but be real.)

That " vitriol " you posted is not vitriol but and opinion against your several times " insult " to LÖFgreen that obviously for you and dogberry is just ok and not for me. Re-read my post about.

Raul, this is a bit unhinged. Are you suggesting I have condoned an "insult" against Löfgren just because I have suggested I might try an experiment with an underhung arm? It's precisely because of this level of incoherent debate that I am interested in finding out for myself. I would have thought you would encourage the experiment, secure in your expectation that I will report that it sounds awful.

@reimarc I am myself a long term user of Idler drive TT's that have undergone modification to substantially change what was original, even though on the 401 this was mainly the Platter Bearing Assembly, the Lenco is a PTP Solid Nine which is still owned.

Today I am a DD user as the main TT, but also have a bespoke designed Tonearm, produced by an individual, who I am sure will be as captivating in the sharing of  their  TA knowledge as has the Viv Designer, Mr. Koichiro Akimoto.

I have also tried to gather a little interest within my local HiFi Group on the Miyaji MEMS cartridge, which has already created a similar content that follows the Viv from onlooker ( those with no experience).

Your offer to visit and have a experience is very very Kind, to one person the encounter could prove to be a experience that stimulates change. I am one individual with this as the outcome of a visit to a individual who has been very creative in realizing their ideas for what a audio system can sound like. The experience in relation to Analogue as a Source has been the best to date from numerous encounters and paved the way for gaining the full benefits from follow up changes being made.     

Dear @reimarc @lewm and friends: " I think the complete acoustic decoupling by the fluid bed plays an important role here....."

Way important along the tonearm arm wand O rings to tame additional resonances/distortions..

Well, in this thread I posted similar statements about self tonearm damping importance in the VIV but till today only you as an owner took in count the tonearm critical importance of that damping.

In the past and in several other threads about different tonearms designs I almost always posted exactly what you said and that I said too even in this post. For me your damping tonearm statements speaks who you are, good.

In the other side: " I strongly recommend to forget historic dogma in this case and let your ears decide,.."

well, for me and my targets that " let your ears decide " is the real " historic dogma " touted by vintage and today reviewers and audio manufacturers.

Now,I’m not against your dogma and the Löfgreen alignments is not in any way an " historic dogma " , all depends of each one of us MUSIC reproduction targets in our room/system and I let or I think that I left very clear my main room/system ( maybe I did not or my explanation in that latest post was not clear . ) target where no matter what the VIV can’t help me ( unfortunatelly ) to stay truer/nearer to the recording.

Look, my target is that the cartridges can pick-up as much information from the groove LP modulations as it can due that that MUSIC information is what stays in the whole recording proccess. To reach those first target is that the cartridge stylus reads each single groove modulation in centered position in that groove. In theory you can reach that only through a LT tonearm design and through the years the second best way ( nearer tracking angle to that centered stylus position. AS nearer the best as away the worse.  ) to reach that target is using a pivot tonearm through Löfgreen alignments ( nearer centered stylus groove position. ). All these are facts with measurements and the like.Here my ears not decide,common sense tells me ( and I think almost no one here can’t prove I’m just wrong.) is the rigth way to reach my main TARGET. Different audiophile targets could means different alternatives.

In all these LP play system proccess Accuracy is way important to mantain every developed single kind of distortion system source at minimum, not an easy task.

R.