Anyone try the replica B-60 Fidelity Research VTA?

Dear Jonathan, In the first place I really hope that your
new IT-VTA-06 is much better as the old-fashioned made
B-60 so I can buy from you the old one(grin).In the second
place I even posted a picture of the 'incriminated part'
which is a small screw with a pin on its 'nose' to the seller
from whom I bought the replica. Despite my 3 added
emails I heard nothing from this seller while I also made
some suggestion how to improve this part. I am not sure
about my assertion but think that 'steel on steel' is not
the optimal combination for 'glide' purposes. I.e. the
internal collar need to move up and down along this pin.
I think that this screw with the pin in front should be
made from bronze or rather 'gun metal'.
As a brave Serbian warrior I am not afread to contradict
even J. Carr. But there are some old-fashioned machinist
who still swear by the old lathes and categorically claim
that the talent of the machinist is more imortant then the
used kind of lathe (grin).

The basic principle of identity relation looks so obvious
and easy to understand: 'whatever is true about some object
will stay true by substitution of one name for the other
with the same reference'. For some reasons logicians an
mathematicians can't do without 'substitutio salva veritate'.
When I stated at school that 3+4 don't look
to me as identical with 7 my theacher responded with:'that
is because you are an imbecile Andric'. I learned (much)
later from Frege that different sense(s) (meanings?) may
have the same reference. While the ontological status of
numbers is not (yet) clear it seems reasonable to state
that 3+4 and 7 refer to the same, uh, object.
Even more tricky are the so called 'descriptive names'.
There are to many objects in the universe so we don't
actually have names for them all.
So 'the teacher of Alexander' or 'the designer by Lyra'
will produce true or false identity statment if we name
Aristoteles instead of Plato or J. Carr instead of,say,
Van den Hul.
Now what about: the replica B-60 from Hawaii, the replica
from Taiwan and the replica from Hong Kong? It looks as
if we moved from scarcity to a state of abundance. That
is when we add the new Ikeda B-60. Alas. The guy from
Hawaii (Syntax) is the same guy whom I moved to Tahiti.
'Our' Japanese Walter. I exchnged about 10 emails with him
and know that he made the drawings but the instrument is
made in Taiwan or Hong Kong. I also wrote to the seller of
the replica but got the wrong person answer. I at last got
the right person called Tien who was very kind and helpful.
He promissed to make for me this damn screw from
bronze. He also stated that the same B-60 is sold from
Taiwan as from Hong Kong. So we are talking about one and
the same replica.
Assuming that this one is made on the most modern CNC lathe
I am curious if the 'old-fashioned' made Ikeda B-60 is
better?

Dear Nandric, You have my email address. Would you be kind enough to send your photos to me? Then we can "know" whether you and I, at least, are talking about the same item. I put the word "know" in quotations so as not to provoke a philosophical dilemma for you. I think you are probably correct; there is probably only one replica, sold from several different sources depending upon the whim of its maker.

Dear Dover, Obviously, if the mount allows the tonearm to wiggle side to side or especially up and down during actual use, that is totally unacceptable. Obviously. However, I understood Nandric to be saying that his "B60" was not malfunctioning to that degree, but that's why I asked my follow-up question to his original post. I won't make a categorical statement comparing the DV505 to the DV501 (which I also own), or the DV505 to the FR64S cum B60 replica, because I think such comparisons are highly dependent upon the cartridge being used. The FR64S affords a much higher effective mass than does the DV501 or 505. What cartridge(s) did you use when comparing them?

Assuming that this one is made on the most modern CNC lathe
I am curious if the 'old-fashioned' made Ikeda B-60 is
better?

Well, in our modern time every product is made with the best machines, with endless care, ultimate brain and of course NASA Science. Sometimes you can add some guys from Stanford University, too.
Well, I think, Ikeda missed the holy water marketing but even without that, these items are done perfect. I own two B-60 (originals of course) and I can't count how many times I moved the arms up and down (really a lot) and they work the way they should. Some time ago I knew from someone who was really interested to copy the B-60 based on German Tooling Standard, - identical material of course - and he quit. Too expensive in the making and nearly impossible to sell, way above 1.5k...
When I saw the B-60 copy, I thought it is dirt cheap...and a chance to get something really rare...but who knows.
I hope you can get the result you hope for, the original B-60 are ultra rare, in the last 3 years I saw only 2 or 3, both in the area of 1300 Euros and sold after 2 days...

Dear Syntax, It was the very rarity and cost of an original B60 that prompted me to "take a flyer" (as we say in the US) on the reproduction B60. In quality of construction and materials, I am not disappointed; it's beautifully made. So far, mine does not do the bad things that Nandric reports. He sent me a photo of the damnable screw; I am going to find out whether mine is the same, or not.

I would never use an FR tonearm without the B60. It should have been standard equipment.