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TriPlanar Tips

The manual that comes with the TriPlanar Mk VII tonearm is fairly complete, but there are a few things I’ve learned only by living with the arm. Note: I do not know which if any of these would apply to previous versions of the arm. My only experience is with the Mk VII.

1. NEVER raise the cueing lever while the arm is locked in the arm rest. This pressures the damping cylinder and could cause a silicone leak. For this reason and also for safety, whenever the arm is in the arm rest the cueing lever should be DOWN. This is backwards from most arms and takes some getting used to.

2. If your Tri-Planar doesn't cue straight down there's a quick fix, which may be included on some new arms. The problem is insufficient friction between the arm tube and the hard rubber cueing support bar. Just glue a bit of thin sandpaper to the underside of the arm tube. Make it big enough and position it so it hits the cueing support bar at all points across the arm’s arc. (Note: after doing this you will need to adjust the cueing height, see Tip #3.)

3. When adjusting cueing height (instructions are in the manual) always do so with the arm in the UP position. This adjustment is VERY touchy, since the cueing support bar is so close to the pivot. Be patient and be careful of your cartridge. (Note: after doing this you may need to adjust the anti-skate initiation point, see Tip #4.)

Chris Brady of Teres told me of a way to improve cueing even more by re-shaping the cueing support. Moving the cueing support point farther from the pivot improves its mechanical advantage and makes the cueing height and speed adjustments less touchy. This mod is easier than it sounds and requires only a length of coat hanger (!), but I don’t have pix and haven’t yet done it myself.

4. Changing the cueing height affects the point where anti-skate kicks in. (Yes, it's weird.) Once cueing height is satisfactory, adjust the short pin that sticks out of the front of the cueing frame. That pin controls where the anti-skate dogleg first engages the knot on the string.

5. The Tri-Planar comes with three counterweight donuts of differing masses. Many cartridges can be balanced using either of two. The arm usually tracks best with the heaviest donut that will work, mounted closer to the pivot. Of course this also reduces effective mass, which may or may not be sonically desirable depending on the cartridge. It also leaves more room for Tip #6.

6. For fine VTF adjustments don’t futz with the counterweight, there’s an easier way. Set the counterweight for the highest VTF you think you’ll need (ie, close to the pivot). Pick up some 1/4" I.D. O-rings from Home Depot. To reduce VTF a bit just slip an O-ring or two on the end stub. Thin O-rings reduce VTF by .01-.02g, thick ones by .04-.05g. Quick, cheap, effective. (For safety, always lock the arm down while adding or removing O-rings.)

7. When adjusting VTA, always bring the pointer to the setting you want by turning it counter-clockwise at least ¼ of a turn. This brings the arm UP to the spot you've selected, which takes up the slop in the threads. You can easily feel this happening.

Hope someone finds these useful. If you know any more, please bring ‘em on!
dougdeacon
jfrech's avatar
jfrech
1,816 posts
 
Paperw8:

interesting test. i can whack parts of the arm support with a finger tap and hear it. so i am suprised your test didn't result in something. was the needle in the groove or just stationary in the resting position?

with my grand prix table i was able to remove the trough with out removing the arm. it's a instant change for the better. i won't be going back...but that's my arm on my table, i am sure there is a possibility of things turning out different for others...

good luck !
paperw8
165 posts
 
Jfrech:

When I tap on the trough, I hear a *sound* but a sound is not necessarily a resonance. The sound that I hear when I tap on the trough quickly dissipates. Now, you can impart a lot more energy upon a tonearm part with your finger (or a screwdriver) than can ambient sound energy from your speakers. So, what that means is, when resonance is lacking, sound energy has no chance of having any impact on the sonic performance of the tonearm.

Resonances are something different. What is different about a resonance, and why resonances are such a problem, is that when a resonance exists, sound energy is trapped within the object, which then becomes a source for additional sound propagation. In effect, sound energy that enters the object tends to stick around for a lot longer. That's why the tone that you hear from a tuning fork hangs around so long - it's because of the resonance at the tuned frequency of the tuning fork. On the other hand, other frequencies tend to get wiped out rather quickly, so that's why you don't hear them.

I can't, and don't, comment on what people think they are hearing. For example, I will not tell you that you aren't hearing what you say you are hearing. I simply lack sufficient information to make such a statement. The question that I ask myself is: "is there an explanation that is based in sound physics or electronics reasoning that explains what people say they are observing?"
dougdeacon OP
3,338 posts
 
Paperw8,

The small, threaded VTF weight at the end of the stub only arrived with the TriPlanar VII U ("U" stands for updated). Previous versions of the arm lacked that feature. As I expressly stated in my original post, these tips are for the TriPlanar VII. Their applicability to other versions is untested, but #6 obviously does not apply to the VII U.

FWIW, the publication of suggestion #6 here is what inspired Tri-Mai to add that small, threaded VTF weight. You apparently got one and your gratitude is duly noted! ;-)

***

As for theoretical arguments that the damping trough is quite rigid and "shouldn't" need to be removed, I'll refer you to the dozens of owners who've actually tried it. Not one has failed to hear improvements such as I described.

Whether you choose to try it yourself or not is up to you of course, but theoretical objections won't convince anyone who's actually heard the difference.
paperw8
165 posts
 

08-22-10: Dougdeacon
the publication of suggestion #6 here is what inspired Tri-Mai to add that small, threaded VTF weight. You apparently got one and your gratitude is duly noted!
The fact of the matter is that I do appreciate that you contributed to improving the tonearm. I only got my tonearm a couple of months ago, so I didn't know the history of it all.

As to your other comment:

As for theoretical arguments that the damping trough is quite rigid and "shouldn't" need to be removed, I'll refer you to the dozens of owners who've actually tried it. Not one has failed to hear improvements such as I described.

Whether you choose to try it yourself or not is up to you of course, but theoretical objections won't convince anyone who's actually heard the difference.
I tried to make clear that it is not my business to tell people that they aren't hearing what they say they are hearing. My inquiry tends to focus on whether I can make sense of what other people are saying; things that make sense to me are more persuasive than things that don't make sense to me. I must say that the fact that other people say that they can "hear the difference" is not particularly persuasive because you always have to watch out for the "emperor's new clothes" phenomenon in which one person says something, and then other people possibly convincing themselves that it is true because they saw it in writing somewhere. The reason for my skepticism is that in this forum, I have read incorrect statements made by people who assert the authority of the statements on the basis that others had written the same thing, or that they saw it in a wikipedia entry, and so forth. While the Internet is a good source of information, one of the problems with the Internet is that incorrect information can get propagated, and then acquire a certain measure of authority by the mere fact that it was repeated.
lewm
13,324 posts
 
I kind of agree with paperw8. If the damping trough is securely fastened, then it is in effect a part of the overall mass of the tonearm. The totality of the tonearm almost certainly has a resonant frequency, so removing the damping trough could only alter that frequency, as the act of removing the trough has altered the mass of the tonearm. Since the damping trough is such a small fraction of the overall mass of the tonearm, one would expect that its effect on the resonant frequency is small. Maybe it goes up a few Hz because the mass has been slightly reduced. However, if the damping trough were loose and could therefore resonate independently, then removing it would only be a good thing, because by itself the trough would resonate at a high-ish frequency. The frequently reported improvement in sound related to removing the trough could also be due to the fact that the arm may sound better without any damping applied. If you're not going to use damping fluid, you may as well remove the trough. Then there is also the "Emporer's new clothes" effect, mentioned by Pw8.

As regards that added way of fine adjusting VTF in the Ultimate version, isn't it interesting that the rear end of the arm has a threaded hole, even on very old arms like mine? Seems maybe Herb Papier was thinking about a threaded weight 20 years ago.
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