Discuss The Viv Lab Rigid Arm

Pindac, in your recent very long post, I am not quite sure what you wanted to say, but I take it that you believe the pleasure of good music enjoyed in the company of good friends is the highest goal of our hobby, and who could possibly disgree with that? And I see your point that this is true even if and when cartridge set-up is less than perfect. So maybe this leaves us with the question how much accuracy in cartridge set-up is "good enough". I have long characterized myself as an alignment nihilist; I certainly used and still use one of two good protractors (Feickert and Smartractor), but I gotta admit I did not sweat too much over exactitude. +/-0.5mm was good enough for me, if that. Now this business of zenith blows up all my earlier comfort with approximations. Dave and others have shown that if the stylus in your cartridge was mounted with an error of even 1 degree, and if you are ignorant of that defect or ignore it, then despite all your efforts at exact alignment, you may very well wind up with very large amounts of TAE and zero null points on the surface of the LP. I think that is something we need to care about.

This has me thinking about my ZYX UNIverse cartridge. I bought it because my neighbor had one, and on his system, it blew me away with its imaging and clarity and sense of space. I’ve owned my own sample for several years, and it has never performed up to the standards of my neighbor’s sample. I’ve had it mounted in a 10.5-inch Reed tonearm on a tweaked Technics SP10 Mk3 (Krebs mod and JP Jones chip upgrade in a slate and hardwood plinth). Several months ago, I became aware of the zenith issue. Subsequent examination of my UNIverse using my microscope reveals its stylus was mounted with an extreme error in zenith angle, at least 4-5 degrees. I have to think this may account for the underwhelming performance. I am now thinking of having my UNI re-tipped, not because of stylus wear but in order to fix zenith. Twisting the cartridge in the headshell is one way to compensate for a zenith error, but my sample would need an extreme twist, and that puts aberrant forces on the cantilever which could also compromise performance.

Yes, this has nothing to do with the Viv tonearm.

Getting the best, the measure of their quality, from individual components assembled into a listening system especially if they are high acheivers is akin to assembling a complex list of ingredients for a complex food item.

For a master chef the list of many ingredients coupled to a particular and nuanced way the many stages of the process must be undertaken is no bother. The master chef has been shown how to assemble which ingredients, the right and the wrong way to undertake the intricate stages of the process of acheiving the flavour result and how serving the final result affects the same.

A novice or amateur working under their own steam with no formal training and gleaning information from whoever offers it, might produce a masterpiece of this complex dish with complex stages and nuanced particular requirements. Generally however a complex dish with complex stages which all need to be performed correctly for a top notch end result will fall short. The combined lack of full insight and understanding of what is neccessary undermines result even if all of the assembled raw ingredients for the recipe are beyond criticism.

Hifi is a lot like that.

When we talk about systems and we see, with our eyes, the list of ingredients in the system, The list of components in that system. We are not seeing how accomplished is the person who put the system together. That can only be heard. From my own experience, first hand, of listening to a lot of systems other people put together. Even with first rate ingredients. Using records I brought along to every audition as a control. Most were murky and ill defined, even if ’pleasant and inoffensive’. Inoffensive sound. Murky and ill defined. With completely satisfied, even boastful, owners.

The biggest barrier to extracting the utmost from a collection of ingredients which work together in complex ways is the individual doing the assembly and the limitations of their understanding and lack of practical experience in optimising what they have assembled by way of ingredients.

The lesson: Read. Ask. Take time. Get out of your home and listen to as many different systems as you can acess. Find out why things sound excellent and what hinders. There is a lot which still remains barely known to any, myself included, but there is a lot of shared wisdom. Biggest thing is to get out of home with your CDs, records whatever and find out how good they should sound. That is tasting the recipe done right. Then after that we know if our efforts with the ingredients we have assembled approach or fall short by however much. Some combinations of components(systems) have no chance of ever producing the utmost of each individual ingredient. Many many many good ingredients combined(systems) simply are not being assembled and untilised optimally. That which we call tweaking for optimum the master chef calls doing the process right. Unlike cooking we can reverse and undo our mistakes, but we have to know first where we went wrong and have been exposed to an understanding of the correct process and what a great example of the taste of our recordings sounds like.

Better to be a great chef with modest ingredients than a naff chef with the best available ingredients.

To summarize,

A Cart' that is very familiar, used with a change to the Systems Amp's and New Speakers to was noticed to be a tiny bit off.

Same Cart' assessed with familiar Amp' and New Speakers, was still assessed as being  a tiny bit off.

Vinyl Source compared to CD Source for the first time in this home on both above systems, was notable for being near as impressive as Vinyl.

All attendees inclusive of system owner was on board with the commentary about the Cart'.

Both Sources, inclusive of the variety of CD Sources performed in a very very attractive manner.

My conjecture is that a Cart' that is a Optimally aligned Cart', as a result of going beyond the typical methods to set up, does has a noticeable X Factor, but when the X has seemingly been removed, the Cart' remains thoroughly impressive.

Maybe the importance of the X in the listening, is the easy to detect condition when the X has seemingly been removed?

More Importantly the priority is at my end, to enjoy the entertainment that is on offer in the Company of friends and fellow hobbyists, which I suggest some would struggle with as being categorised as an Audiophile.     

@lewm : Strain gauge needs correction too. Its amplitude developed curve does not coincide exactly with the RIAA one.

Anyway, if he does not shares his idea how we can comment about or better yet: how can we learn on it ?

Problem with LP is the tracking distortion developed by the stylus tip surface friction during playback. .

R.

Raul, I agree that a strain gauge used without any correction would not conform well to RIAA, because it would not be correct in the region 500Hz to about 2kHz, where the RIAA curve has a plateau. But like you said, because we don't know the identity of the cartridge, or even if it is a strain gauge for sure, I felt that no further comment was justified.