Discuss The Viv Lab Rigid Arm

and please don't forget the cartridge compliance important role too.

Now, I don't need an explanation how is that that skating force can the stylus tip under that tremendous and infernal pressure at the tip to spin.

Common sense says:NO WAY.

Again Make a pressure does not means it spin and as I said compliance plays its role here.

R.

Sorry again, this was my first post to Richard about that I deleted:

@richardkrebs : " AS is set by the user at a constant magnitude.."

Normally the tonearms designers design the AS mechanism to be not constant in magnitude but going from less to more as the cartridge moves inside and yes is only in one direction and away to be perfect, nothing is in the analog audio world where everything is full of trade-offs and each one of us have several trade-offs to choose in between, it’s way personal.

The issue is to stay nearer/truer to the recording. Now, I never seen specific measures on the tracking distortion levels of the skating against the tracking distortion levels of the off-set angle in pivot tonearms.

At least by measures we all know at each single groove the level tracking distortion through the Löfgreen alignments against nothing similar with the sckating issue.

I use what for me is the second best option to stay nearer/truer to the recording using pivot off-set angle tonearm trying to have some equilibrium with objectivity and at the same time subjectivity.

I already said to lewm ( he said I’m wrong about ) that knowing him through years of his posts that he will continues with arguments about because he has no objective answer/measured and proved whay he likes " something " as his VIV that has higher tracking distortions due that has zero off-set angle been a pivoted design. This is my take with him even that he is in total disagreement with me.

Today I’m totally satisfied under objective/subjective equilibrium with my choose of that second best alternative to achieve my target.

Other audiophiles have different targets and that’s all. At the end what overall plays a main role on each one of us is that can stay satisfied. I’m.

R.

" to negate the skating force .... "

In my case I don’t negate its existence and concecuences. I know that the that force makes a " presure " against the cantilever and the cantilever suspension what I never seen in slow motion ( as what I linked from youtube here. ) that the skating force really makes that the whole cantilever spin in to what holds the cantilever. One thing is to presure it and the other one makes to spin around. We have to remember that's not the only force down there and how ,it with the other developed ones. ( Remember cartridge compliance. Way important in this subject. )

R

@richardkrebs : " How much stylus misalignment and hence distortion, stylus drag causes, "

In any kind of tonearm/cartridge always exist the stylus friction distortion during playback.

At microscopic levels the stylus tip even has several small " jumps " due to that friction that’s is different along all the grooved LP surface depending the recording velocities in different surface positions. Here losted information that can’t pick-up and that’s part of the LP analog imperfections.

That theoretical misalignment you mentioned is different for each LP track sides and we can’t use it as a reference.

There are so many individual characteristics and parameters inside what we are discussing that for me the best I can do is to go with facts/measures that can gives me the best certainty ( that in any way is perfect but in theory helps to reach my targets ) and is what I did and do. Each one " imagination " and knowledge levels could take this dialogue to an endless finish line.

R.

For anybody who would like to investigate Tonearm Geometry a little further or a lot further? , as a means to learn about this subject.

The Following Link will supply info relevant to this subject.

 https://galibierdesign.com/modeling-setup-geometry/ 

Just to note that Tom uses the term zenith and the term headshell offset angle as if they were synonymous. For me, and in all my comments above, the term Zenith is used to refer only to the angle of the mounting of the stylus tip in the cantilever in the horizontal plane and has nothing to do with headshell offset. Certainly head shell offset angle and zenith, as I use the term, are interrelated, but the difference in the definition is also important if you want to understand some of the points that I and dave slagle were trying to make. You can optimize the headshell offset angle for a particular geometry, but all is for naught, if the zenith angle of the stylus tip is not 90°, or such that the two contact patches of the stylus tip are perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the cantilever.