Why is the price of new tonearms so high

Dear T_bone, how to dampen a spring to be used in a dynamically balanced tonearm has been nicely demonstrated by Isamu Ikeda in his (...here we go again...) FR-60 series.
A new or in stock condition FR-60 tonearm will feature a long spiral spring which is embedded in a lot of white and creamy grease.
Much more than you can see on any of the pictures of dismantled FR-64/66 on the web.

If a spring is fairly large, fairly wide in diameter and quite solid (stainless-steel) it is - due to its location at the very center of gravity and inertia and to its position in conjunction with the surrounding grease and the fact that its edge is in contact with another surface on the whole length - most unlikely to resonate at all.
There are many more light-weight parts much less dampened in many more high-ticket tonearms past and present who are much more likely to resonate and add colorations to the sonic picture than a hefty and highly damped by several different measures spring.
Furthermore we do see dynamically balanced - i.e. spring loaded VTF - in very different tonearms ranging from high effective mass (FR, Exculsive, MAX (depending on armwand and headshell)) to medium and low like MA-505, SME V et al.
So it is neitehr a measure taken to deal with warp or high compliance (most unlikely to go with a high effective mass tonearm anyway...).
Interesting enough we see dynamically balanced design in the most expensive stock toonearms of the early 1980ies:
The Exclusive EA-10, Micro Seiki MAX-282, FR-66s/fx and SME V - all dynamically balanced.
All made by fairly large companies and/or specialized tonearm-manufactures which tried to set the benchmark for the component.

Constant VTF independed from the static balance mode of the tonearm does have several virtues and no disadvantage.
It can however - not be incorporated in every tonearm. It depends on the bearing you choose.
Consequently there must be disagreement about the dynamically vs static balanced mode - depending what "school's" scholar you are.....

D (and others),
I can envisage the practical difficulties of applying dynamic balancing force onto a unipivot bearing. I can see similar problems if a magnetic bearing is not otherwise stabilized. However, if the thread/magnetic/hydraulic/whatever bearing has more than one support point, doesn't give the same stability as, at a minimum, a double knife-edge?

Next a look at the effect of "warp riding". Assume a standard "taco warp" so the warp frequency is 7 rad.s^-1. This gives a maximal velocity of .007 m.s^-1 in the vertical plane for each mm of vertical warp and a maximal acceleration of .049 m.s^-2 (again for each mm of vertical warp).

The product of this acceleration and the effective inertial mass of the arm / cart combination gives a maximal VTF variation when riding the warp. If the inertial mass were 25 g (say 15g arm plus 10g cartridge) and the warp were 5mm high, the maximal variation would be around 6.2 mN. A similar calculation allows a maximal warp tolerance to be derived for any arm / cart combination as a function of VTF.

The important point is that it has nothing to do with the balance of the arm but is stictly related to the moment of inertia (and the mass of the cart).

Mark Kelly

If it were as you stated, in consequence the derivation in VTF would be worse with increased effective length (= increased inertia) and increased effective mass (= increased inertia). Thus a super lightweight short (9") tonearm would be best in conjunction with a low mass body cartridge.
What brings up the Black Widow w/MM again.

However the sonic results do show us a different picture.
The derivation in VTF with a dynamically balanced tonearm is less than with the same tonearm in static balanced mode.
As all dynamic balanced tonearms can be used in static balanced mode too, this is easy to illustrate in demo. The static balanced mode to some does sound more "livelike" due to more alternations in VTF. The dynamically balanced mode often is mistaken for being too "remote - less lively".
But it is due to more constant VTF.

So same -static- inertia, same effective mass, same effective length.
The whole static spring-mass-system is the same in both modes - but we face different behavior.

I do not think we have yet reached the verdict with the model as described by Quiddity.
Some dynamic aspects has to be taken into consideration too - aside from the pure static model.

Completely wrong.

Your first paragraph makes no sense: the effective mass of an arm is simply the moment of inertia divided by the square of the effective length.

In the second para you present a supposition which I have already shown to be wrong but you do not support it with evidence.


Mark Kelly