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?
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 |
It really doesn't matter what the naysayers are saying nay to. There forte is remaining where they are and professing what they have. The better types, to take a lead from, are those who moved on to the Viv from the tools naysayers are advocates of, or those who get their most satisfying experience using Underhung Tools and Over hung Tools in conjunction, where the differences are seen to be the bonus. Each to their own on such matters, unless one likes to get the zGloves On.
|
| Post removed |
