looking at upgrading my tonearm from a triplanar

Tom,

Thanks for your report and glad you're enjoying! Your finding echoes my experience and that of nearly all who've compared these two arms.

At these levels, I believe the differences of tonearms is not better/best, but just different. Boston's Symphony Hall is different than NY's Carnegie Hall, but is any one better?

At any level, I believe the near-unanimous reports of multiple owners deserve more credence than the beliefs of someone who, so far as I'm aware, has heard neither. In any event, equating tonearms to concert halls is too fantastic to merit discussion. By comparison, Homeland Security's interest in TriPlanar's bearing usage approached being meaningful.

it's been a real eye opening experience

Thanks everyone for helping out

I agree with Doug that sometimes variations between gear aren't just a preference but a clear distinction of what sounds more like live music

That was the case for me with the Talea

My local expert arm setup guy and I just looked at each other and knew what we were dealing with was a big step in musicality

While I'm quite familiar with what the "Triplaner" looks like, I've never seen a "Durand Talea", I decided to look it up.

Heres the site for the famed "Durand Talea";

http://www.durand-tonearms.com/Whattheysay/whattheysay.html

It sure is pretty, now you can get yourself a couple for your two arm TT

Audiotomb did you try any of the newer Triplanars? The new 12" is pretty impressive.

For anyone finding atmasphere's discussion of the bearings used in the Triplanar important in their consideration of tone arm design, or even just interesting, let me direct you to the Wikipedia entry (I don't know how to attach a link---I gotta learn how to do that!) on Silicon Nitride. One section in the entry is specifically about it's use in the making of bearings. NASA chose Silicon Nitride bearings for the main engines of the Space Shuttle for several reasons, one of them being that they are much harder than bearings made of ANY metal, no matter the hardness rating.

Geoffrey Owen of Helius Designs will be using them in his new TOTL tone arm being readied for introduction next year, but is also offering them as an upgrade on the current Omega arm. The standard Omega has Tungsten bearings, the Silver Ruby Omega, duh, Ruby ones, which as Ralph pointed out are easily damaged. Geoffrey used them because they are so much smoother than any metal (look at even the hardest grade of any metal bearing under a high-power microscope---it has quite a rough surface, no matter the grade; part of Geoffrey's business is in laser optics for use in space exploration telescopes), with far lower friction and, as Geoffrey told me, noise, the level of which is a major design criteria of his in making tone arms.