Unipivot tone arms

The new Clearaudio magnetically stabilised unipivot provides the best aspects of unipivot and dual axis bearing arms - fabulous arm.

larryi

I am surprised by comments about handling an arm.  I don’t see this as an issue at all.

It's just a matter of preference. There's something very appealing about the precision of an arm such as a Triplanar or SME V. It's a tactile thing. By comparison, a wobbly unipivot feels imprecise. Again, just a matter of preference.

People often say they don't like how the arm tilts if they just stick their finger under the lift and trying to pinch the lift leads to them accidentally sliding the needle across the groove.  I say never touch the arm when you are ready to play the record; use the cuing mechanism.

I also hear people talk about accidentally bumping the arm while cleaniing the stylus or changing a record, or whatever, and having the srylus hit the platter.  Again, this never happens if, when play is done, one returns the arm to the rest and does not cue down.  It is just safer and more convenient to always be cued up until lowering the needle to play.

I have had two undamped VPI unipivots, a 9" on the Scoutmaster and a 10" on the Prime.  Yes, they are "fiddly" and need to be handled with care, but I like the simple technology and have never noticed any distortion or noise that I could attribute to the arm.  VPI has now moved to a gimbled arm(s) and may not make the the old unipivot any more.  I suppose there is a good reason for this change.

I agree with the sentiment that it is all in the execution. Each implementation has theoretical advantages in some way and if properly designed and executed, any of them can shine. A tonearm is a precision instrument so the best are not inexpensive, but I think once you reach a certain level they all are very capable performers.

I have Kuzma Airline linears that are superb, but I think my Bird of Prey (http://www.robyattaudio.com/) unipivot is a bit better. It is viscous and magnetically damped. It is in no way "wobbly." You would not know it is a unipivot just by how it feels. The designer claims that a unipivot can "lock" into the groove in a way that non unipivots can't.. Makes sense that it is more adaptable in that way. In any case, some of my lesser cartridges sound really, really good on this arm. The better ones sound superb.

I've also had extensive experience with the Moerch DP-8 and it is also world class, especially for the $$.