Dear Sdcampbell: I agree with you, but:
+++++ " the longer arm may provide less tracing distortion, and therefore better sound, than the shorter arm. " +++++
The theory told us that that statement is true. In three of my tonearms where you can interchange arm wands ( pipes ) : Audiocraft AC4400/3300, Micro Seiki MAX 282/237 and Moerch DP-6, I own and used long and short arm wands trying to " see " if there are any improvements on the long ones: till today I never find that the longest had less distorted sound, there are very slightly differences in the sound that I think is for a diferent resonance point due to the diferent effective mass of the arm wands. I can't tell of those diferences like a " better sound ".
All these tonearms and the today top tonearms are very well made and it is very dificult by " ear " to tell if the theory be fullfiled on practice.
Other points are that a longer tonearm has its own problems about: torsion forces and slightly high self resonances due to its " long " and bearing " forces " diferences against a short one .
I think that if exist a good tonearm design and a good execution design both type of tonearms: short and long, perform always almost the same.
Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.
+++++ " the longer arm may provide less tracing distortion, and therefore better sound, than the shorter arm. " +++++
The theory told us that that statement is true. In three of my tonearms where you can interchange arm wands ( pipes ) : Audiocraft AC4400/3300, Micro Seiki MAX 282/237 and Moerch DP-6, I own and used long and short arm wands trying to " see " if there are any improvements on the long ones: till today I never find that the longest had less distorted sound, there are very slightly differences in the sound that I think is for a diferent resonance point due to the diferent effective mass of the arm wands. I can't tell of those diferences like a " better sound ".
All these tonearms and the today top tonearms are very well made and it is very dificult by " ear " to tell if the theory be fullfiled on practice.
Other points are that a longer tonearm has its own problems about: torsion forces and slightly high self resonances due to its " long " and bearing " forces " diferences against a short one .
I think that if exist a good tonearm design and a good execution design both type of tonearms: short and long, perform always almost the same.
Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.