Is it worth this tonearm?


Hi folks,

I have been slowly upgrading my analog playback and have come to the final decision, which tonearm? Through Mehran, who is a fine gentleman, I have been able to aquire the Amazon referenze TT and the Atmos ZYX cartridge.

Lastly I must decide on tonearms. Tripanar or Moerch DP6. The combo of the triplanar and ZYX has been well documented and from my research, Moerch and ZYX less so. I suppose what I am wondering is the Triplanar worth the extra funds? Will I have that much more satisfaction over the Moerch?

I will say, I listen mostly to rock, blues, jazz. Also, I am not the type that is going to play around with the arm much. Once I get it tuned in, which I don't mind spending time doing, I do not want to fiddle around much, like say changing the VTA between a 180 gram record and a normal record. I'm more of a get it right, set it and let her play.

Thanks for any input and guidance.

Peter
mariasplunge
I have had both Moerch (Blue dot) and Triplanar in my systems and the most noticeable difference is in the lower registers where I found the Triplanar more rock solid and the Moerch is softer. As always arm matching with cartridges (and phono cable) is very important and for me the Zyx sounds right in the Triplanar and less involving in the Moerch. Hope that helps.
Radi- that sounds great. That was some of the info I was looking for. Partucularly with rock, I don't want "softer.' Thanks for chiming in especially since you have expereince with both!!

Audiotomb, yes i have read a couple of threads of yours and in fact your threads were the ones that lead me to start this questioning. Doug as well has been extremely helpful. I like your point and it is well noted, an arm i can keep for life. Now thats what I am after. That sounds like it should be worth 50% more! I'll be using a Nick Doshi pre with phono.

Cheers all
Peter,

You've already gotten many insightful responses. I do know one UNIverse owner who upgraded from DP-6 to TriPlanar. He was frankly astonished by the improvement wrought by the TriPlanar. My experience with the Atmos suggests it is worth having a very good arm, so if the budget allows...

Based on your musical priorities and your desire to set/forget when feasible, you chose well getting the Atmos rather than the UNIverse. While both cartridges respond to very fine tuning, the Atmos is more forgiving of small inaccuracies. That's a nice way of saying it's less resolving than a UNIverse, but for many listeners and many records that is probably just fine. We get extraordinary musical results from the top model, even more since some recent changes I'll be posting about, but that extraordinary resolution demands extraordinary attention to every variable. You can't get one without the other.

Best,
Doug
Peter, I recently switched from a Moerch DP-6 (with 12" Red wand) to a Triplanar, each used on a Galibier Gavia. In my opinion, they are both excellent arms and, with the right cartridge, are each capable of top flight performance. It is hard to provide helpful capsule descriptions of the two arms because the sound of the Moerch (like many other arms) will be affected so much by the choice of phono cable. The Triplanar has a dedicated cable so it isn't subject to that variable. With that major caveat, I found the Triplanar to have slightly greater inner detail and a more solid low frequency foundation. Of course, the Triplanar also has more convenient adjustments for VTA and cartridge alignment.

For someone who prefers to listen to music rather than obsess over tonearm adjustments, the Moerch can be quite satisfying. If you are the type who wants to adjust VTA for each recording, the Triplanar is clearly the way to go.

Dave
Doug, good to see you made it here. Thanks for the advice. Dave, much appreciated. Its really good to see advice from folks who have had experince with both products. Thanks a lot.
That was one thing i was certianly wondering about. I've heard that phono cables make a noticeable change in sound and the fact that the triplanars was preset did concern me, as I would not be able to play around with cable choices, which at time I enjoy doing. That was a plus for the Moerch.

In the end though and mostly based on the advice of you great folks here, I ordered the triplanar today. I think it was a good move. Also, I will be revising my statement about not fooling around with tuning in the adjustments. I'll probably to that too. I'm no golden ear but part of that is training over time right!?

Cheers all and thanks for the help
Peter