The OL design doesn't make sense to me either. I owned a Silver. It was an excellent arm for the money, really excellent, but it didn't match top level arms for clarity and resolution.
Personally I wouldn't spend $5K (or even $2K) for an arm with this flaw, since the sonic effects are of a type we're sensitive to. It's possible *some* rock listeners wouldn't care, since there are many rock LP's which cannot support too much clarity and resolution. With classical, OTOH, the more resolution the better. I just remounted my UNIverse last night after checking out a friend's cartridge in our system. The tiniest azimuth change I can manage on the TriPlanar's really excellent adjustor is instantly audible. Knowing what's possible, we wouldn't be happy settling for less.
I'm not really sure what happens to unipivot arms when the stylus hits a bump. Anyone?
Most unipivots, it seems to me, rely heavily on stylus/groovewall pressure to help stabilize the arm in the azimuth plane. After all, they're quite "floppy" until the stylus hits the groove.
This has always seemed like a serious design flaw to me. Our poor stylus, cantilever and suspension have plenty to do following groove modulations without having to help stabilize a structure that outmasses them by 100x or more. (Paul and I both think this is a major reason we dislike a certain arm that I won't offend SS by naming. Let's not go there again!)
Someone once tried to convince me that the azimuth rocking of an unstabilized unipivot keeps the stylus in perfect azimuth relative to the changing groove angle on warped LP's. That's nonsense of course. It would be true only if the stylus were capable of rocking the arm to match the groove angle with ZERO time lag and ZERO overshoot, which is patently impossible. The mass of the arm and the compliance of the suspension will always create a delay between the input of uneven groovewall pressures and the readjustment of the arm angle. By the time the arm reacts the warp would have changed the groove angle, you're always behind, and then the arm would overshoot. Adding outrigger weights would not necessarily help, and it could easily make matters worse depending on warp angle, warp frequency, cartridge compliance and the rotational inertia of the arm. That's too many uncontrollable variables. Stability may be a compromise, but it's the best sounding compromise to our ears.
The Basis Vector and Graham Phantom are exceptions among unipivots of course. Each stabilizes itself, in its own way, leaving the stylus/cantilever/suspension to do their primary job. I think this is a major contributor to their increased clarity vs. their unstabilized cousins. The Phantom's non-contact method of stabilization seems especially ingenious, since it preserves the design advantages of a unipivot while eliminating the disadvantages. Kudo's to Mr. Graham on that one.
Signed,
Anyone...
