Question on FR 66s

Orsonic headshell?. Welcome to the distortion biggest party! where the star is the " fabulous " FR tonearm matched by its " dearest " couple orsonics! . Free entrance. Don't miss it: unique highest distortion party ever! Welcome!

some one even already put a today price for it: 14K. I'm sure is promoting " something " as always.

Btw, one of the gentlemans FR advocates here that started to learn put on sale and sold its orsonic headshells for very good reasons. He has information that all the orsonic advocated has not, that's all about.

As with tonearm we need a " dead silence " headshell too and I mean " dead silent " that " along the tonearm could kills every single kind of resonances/distortions/noises/vibrations coming from everywhere including the tonearm/headshell it self. FR extremely resonant non-damped build material as orsonic are the highest focus of cartridge signal degradation you can find out else where against any other tonearm/headshell combination.

In audio we are and have to make a lot of " compromises/Trade-offs " and in any compromise/trade-offs audio items we choose for advcantages against disadvantages in the item to choose it. FR/orsonic has no single advantage.

Anyway, I was in that " party " and fortunatelly learned all about.

Btw, it is pity and unfortunate that the " audio cancer " be so easy to expand/contaminate audiophiles almost as a " cancer euphoria ".

No one likes to talk about distortions, this word is rejected and a convict promoted by the AHEE and all of us have very low information on distoritons and unaware of them because we are acustom to listening what " we like " against what is right and what is right ( everything the same ) is that that has the lower distortions of everykind from somewhere.

For years I posted that the real main differences in between any audio system quality performance level belongs/reside in how low are overall system distortions in between.

Any one of us can analize each one audio system link to find out the each audio system link distortions and try to lower it. There are always paths to lower distortions and if we don't know how or which distortions we can ask for help.

As lower your each link system distortions as higher the system quality performance level, no single doubt about. As lower system distortions as higher the music enjoyment level. As lower the system distortions as higher the music emotions in your whole body.

IMHO lower/lowest distortions is the real name of the game in audio. Problem is that we learned, were teached and are accustomed to way higher distortions elsewhere the audio system so it is not easy to achieve that system lowest distortions target because the first step is our each one ATTITUDE to change our audio way of living where we could be the main obstacle to do it.

R.

Dear friends: The improvement system qualityperformance level is in your hands and in no ther hands: it is not in the audio item manufacturers or reviewers or audio dealers but in your own hands.

This ROUND BALL is in your side land and you are the only one that can play with.
Perhaps many of us know exactly how to play with squared balls, because that's what the AHEE teached to us and that's what we learned, and now we need to start to learn how we can play with a normal/vivid ROUND BALL.

One first step to play with this new BALL is to reject all what we learned and to reject all those advises coming from everywhere coming from square ball players.

So stay alert on those sqare ball players, they are easy to identify. Even are posting here and are proud enough to follow promoting that " square ball " when MUSIC only plays with ROUND BALL.

So, your turn.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

Dear Raul, With all respect, this is your constant mantra. You are very consistent in your position vis a vis "distortion". The problem is, each of us needs a Raul doppelganger to come into his home to tell us what is distorted and what is not distorted. I have no opinion of Orsonic or FR tonearms. I only know that, while you are not alone in your dislike of Orsonic headshells (possibly confusing and unwarranted, due to the Chinese fakes), the FR tonearms are widely admired by most everyone but you. I have to wonder what it is that they all like and which you find so distasteful. On the surface, I can see your point as regards "resonance" of the structure. There is no damping to speak of, except I think in the bearings. On the other hand, they are structurally very stiff and there are many different shapes involved, so I can imagine that resonance of such a conglomeration could be benign, because it might be spread out broadly over a wide range of frequencies. It's not just the guys you don't like who do like the FR tonearms; lots of your internet friends do appear also to like them.

Dear Raul, thanks for your very thoughtful post. I understand your point and certainly see why you think this way. However, I have to say that my priority is a bit different from yours and this should not come as a surprise since I like FR/Koetsu combination so much :)
I do think that Graham is a more neutral arm than Reed and since Reed and FR share some trait in common, I guess by default, Graham is more neutral than FR as well.
What I don't like (big disclaimer, according to my taste only!) for example, piano, on Graham, you hear the initial attack of the note very clearly and cleanly. However, you get a lot less decay from the string, even if pedal is fully engaged. I don't know if microphone, even placed over the soundboard/string bed, are not capable of picking this up or if they are lost once mixed in with other tracks for ambience etc. I practice on my grand piano pretty much daily and I am very familiar with this rich tone from a piano. On Graham, it just sounds drier, leaner like sustained pedal is not engaged or only half pressed. Reed and FR have these in spades. May be the data is not really there as much on recording and may be it is really distortion from the arm that give the illusion of this decay but I love it. I feel it is closer to what I hear every day on my piano. In fact, during the one year that I have Graham, I hardly ever play any piano recordings on Graham as I find it less bearable.
At the end of the day, we all have to make some compromise and pick and choose strenght of each stereo equipment and accept the flaws that appear the lesser evil to our ears. To my ears, to the kind of music that I love, I just find virtue and flaw of FR/Reed more to my liking and tolerable and since I am the one paying and listening to it and have to live with it, my taste rules in my living room :)
However, your point is well taken and I certainly take that into consideration when I audition a piece of equipment as well.
By the way, up to a couple of days ago, I only heard FR with Koetsu. I just mounted Air Tight on FR 64s/Micro Seiki and the result is quite interesting. It sounds a lot more different than when I have it on Reed/TW or my VPI Classic. I am still adjusting and fiddle with it so I am not quite ready to make up my mind yet but it sounds almost like a different cartridge to me. Good but in a very different way, go figure!

Dear Lewm: As Suteetat posted:

+++++ " However, I have to say that my priority is a bit different from yours " +++++

that's all about.

Yes, my priority is to listen and enjoy MUSIC with the lowest distortions I can achieve because live MUSIC has the lowest distortions we can get. Normally there is only " air " between you and the Music ( near field. ) that is what Suteetat is enjoying every time he plays his piano.
He thinks and I respect him that what he is listening through its system is almost what he experienced live and said that he did not herad piano recordings through the Graham. I'm not a fanatic of Graham and I can't argue almost nothing on his statement because I never been there other that maybe and only maybe the Graham/cartridge combination was not a good one or that that combination performs nearer to the recording. What we like could be not critical but what we heard/hear and why we heard that kind of performance knowing that the music signal passed through a long recording process and through long playback process.
Complex? sure it's a little complex but we can take some help from digital technology using it as a tool to tell us which analog combination is nearer to the recording. You already know that as other audiophiles as Dover or Nandric because they posted and that's why I posted this:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1200430667&openflup&10147&4#10147

yes, digital IMHO is an extraordinary tool to achieve information that will help to improve our analog experience. Only requisite: lates digital DACs technology player, this means: 32/192 or 32/384.

Anyway, all of us are in an audio long learning process every day and is through this learning process that our system improved and will improve with out doubt.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.