Mijostyn brings up the LT and the 5G pretty much EVERY time the Viv is mentioned. I have no argument; those may be superior to the Viv, but that’s not the point. As to the skating force generated by the Viv: it’s always going to be proportional to TAE. So at the outer grooves it may be 10 degrees, worst case, gradually decreasing to zero skating at the single null point where also the direction of the skating force changes by 180 degrees and again reaches a negative maxima at the innermost grooves. A graph of the magnitude of the skating force is a near straight line passing through zero. Thus I would argue the Viv is much gentler than a classic overhung tonearm in terms of aberrant stylus wear. And it’s not a “brave” act to own and use the Viv, at all.
Straight tonearms without offset angle
In the October issue of Stereiphile, there was an article on a tonearm that had no offset angle and therefore had no skating force. The disadvantage of this is at the beginning and end of the record, the tracking angle error was much greater than what you get with an offset angle. For conventional tonearms that have an offset, and require anti-skating, which can never be perfect, the typical tracking error has a supremum of about 2 degrees, and according to online Lofgren calculators, this imposes a second-order harmonic distortion less than 2%.
I have a single-ended triode amplifier consisting of vintage globe 45 triodes transformer coupled to 833A SETs which drives Magnepans. Such SETs typically have second-order harmonic distortion as high as 10% which does not hurt the sound. A straight tonearm without an offset would have a maximum, or supremum tracking error of just under 10 degrees. If this causes a second-order harmonic distortion of less than 10%, would not this be irrelevant in a SET system? Is there any way of calculating this, or has this ever been studied?
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I have zero experience with underhung arms but, have followed this and companion threads with interest. Some of you may have seen the talk given by Jonathan Carr to a group or audiophiles in which, amongst other topics, he talks about underhung arms., . for those who haven't, here is the link Jonathan Carr Presentation at The Audio Salon (youtube.com) Hopefully we can agree that Jonathan knows a thing or two about cartridges, so his opinion on underhung arms should carry more weight that most. See the relevant part starting at 18:40 cheers . |
Same here, @richardkrebs. It's a puzzle that these arms would seemingly defy so many of the principles we've come to accept, and yet produce amazing sonics. I hope to hear one some day and until then, won't dismiss them outright as others here have been willing. Thanks for the link to Carr video. Here's a direct link to the relevant part. |
+1 @lewm It’s common in high end audio to try for oneself to find gear subjectively pleasing. Very few are so risk adverse that they insist on understanding why it works before purchasing, often insisting on proof aka pointing outwards when the fear of being wrong (losing money?) is inwards. No, it’s not courage. In Stereophile Oct2024, even turntable set-up guru Michael Trei heard the positive attributes of a ViV tonearm. Opinions and reviews are commonly active upon: try this dish, this movie’s great, watch out for the dog, etc, although higher risk usually leads to higher scrutiny. I value sonic excellence and variety, so I plan to purchase a ViV tonearm. I’ve looked deeply at LT and am uncomfortable with the complexity, fragility, and fiddlyness. But I’ll probably get a LT to hear vinyl unstressed beginning to end which matters for orchestra crescendos. On a side note, from the lengthy ViV Float thread, wouldn’t it be great if the stubborn naysayers would try a ViV tonearm for themselves. They’d be pleasantly surprised at the high sonic value. Also, hoping that they would use their substantial intellect to experiment to find answers - lots of fun taking on this challenge, answers that they would share to scratch our curiosity itch. Win Win Win |
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