The answer is plain. An infinitely long tonearm (or, as my physics mentor used to say with a nod to Newton and Liebnitz, "as near as makes no difference" in a strong Yorkshire accent), with no offset and it's one and only null point set near the label where it is needed most (for the density of musical information per unit length of groove). You know it makes sense, as the seatbelt campaign used to say.
Seriously, we cannot judge this tonearm until we try it. The arguments from its designer are sensible, but are they enough to overcome conventional wisdom? Only listening would tell us. I wish I were in a position to try it out!
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And no one wants to talk about "trucking errors"?
No doubt we should all take ourselves less seriously. Especially when language errors are at play.
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And as much as I publicly denigrate unbelievable tweaks and hacks, if something is not easily measured, our own ears have to decide. We remember, most of us, that ears are affected by psychoacoustics. And even if you can't measure the effect of a device, it can be shown to be effective in a double blind trial.
This tonearm pitches one source of distortion, tracking error, against another, anti-skating force. It should be relatively easy to come to some kind of consensus as to which of those factors hurts the sound we hear most. Should we not be testing that in a double blind fashion?
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What? It's AUDIBLE? Listen to yourself, if you care to believe in your ears. We are not allowed to believe in our ears, right? I'm quoting an authority here.
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what you think you hear is meaningless.
People have to get off this listening thing.
Just asking for a friend, but why, actually, do you listen to music at all if those quotes from your posts are serious?
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Woo hoo! Here we go again!
All I can say is that people are entitled to like what they want but then they are not true audiophiles.
@mijostyn Well, you have said many times we must ignore what our ears hear, so that bit is consistent. Except for when you later told me all sorts of distortion was "audible"! I must ask you to review the etymology and meaning of "audiophile" and then get back to me with an explanation that makes clear that if I like what I hear I am not a true audiophile, but if I like what you like, I qualify. Currently, it seems that if I don't like what I hear, I am an audiophile. Is that not the upshot of what you have said, or did you misspeak?
For everyone, not just the opinionated, is not what we like the most to listen what we should strive for more of? Both in terms of music and, perhaps in equipment for doing so? Does it matter if it isn't realistic etc? I happen to be rather familiar with a certain opera company's rather nice and relatively new hall. I spent a good deal of cash flying to see three or four operas a year there. I know what that sounds like. Can someone else tell me I must not set up a cartridge in a way that sounds right to my ears on those grounds?
Frankly, I don't give a hoot whether some self-appointed expert here considers me an audiophile. I know how much music I own, like and enjoy. I will continue to do so regardless. But the non-audiophile philosopher in me would like answers.
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In this very thread he has said
what you think you hear is meaningless.
People have to get off this listening thing.
and then followed up with
The distortion caused by the Viv are is easily measured and if your system is really good and you know what you are listening to is quite audible.
No one can have it both ways. Either we trust what we hear or we don't. And, BTW, where did you get the idea I set up cartridges incorrectly to produce distortions I like?
None of us should tolerate being told that we don't know what we hear, or shouldn't like what we hear. That, I'm afraid, is nonsense. If you believe all our brains work exactly the same way, we should know that to be true as we will all have the same beliefs, come to the same answers etc etc. It doesn't seem to work out that way, as disproven by anyone who prefers chocolate over cheese, or vice versa. Individual taste comes into it. I'm not arguing for the loons who love weird plug-in filters with no working parts and no conceivable mechanism of action. Until we can measure everything, the best we have is our ears. Even if we could measure everything, might I not prefer one sound over another? I'm saying we like certain things. I like the sound of live opera in a modern opera house I am familiar with. How can you say I am wrong to do so?
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I have waited several days before looking in. One does not want to be irritated.
...you are no[t] longer an audiophile. You are just a music lover. Not a bad place to be. Certainly a lot less expensive.
As you wish. I shall still point out when you contradict yourself. What's that? Oh, no problem, you're welcome.
If you are an opera buff then you REALLY need to go to Milan and see a show at Teatro alla Scala. It's like the Sistine Chapel for opera lovers.
And how do you know I have not done so? Let us not get into 'no true Scotsman' territory, nor even the 'no true Wagnerian' subset.
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Only 2lb? Acoustand tonearm pods are 5kg/11lb each. Even that isn't enough for some commenters! :)
Seriously though, you have put to the test what I mentioned a few pages back: the advantage of zero skating force might outweigh the tracking error. If it does, as you find, we are all wasting our time with conventional tonearms. Food for thought.
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Is the tonearm base attached to the slate? Or does it rest upon it but not bolted down?
I'd call it a pod if it isn't bolted down, but I mean no disrespect by that term. I remain impressed by your commitment to testing rather than theorising.
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Looks like very few are able to overcome what they have been taught,
And before anyone gets excited, overcoming what your society teaches is you is almost always wrong. The problem is that in the very few exceptions to that "almost always" is where progress lies.
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My first record player needed to be wound up and played only 78s and the only option was whether to use a steel needle or a hawthorn bush thorn, of which there was a supply in a small metal bowl in the top right corner. The 78s given to me with it included "Cherry Ripe" and "Come in to the Garden, Maud"!
Maybe I’m looking for the "hawthorn sound" these days as I gravitate towards Benz Micro?
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@pindac when you wrote:
I can't but help feel that the positive impression being made from use of the 'Viv' by @lewm, is additionally influenced by experiencing a Tonearm with an alternative Mechanical Interface, inclusive of methods for transferring/dissipating energy not seen in a conventional design.
Are you suggesting it is the floating golfball in oil that is responsible for the sound that owners like, as it sounds like you don't think it is the geometry? If so, you might be right, but I'm doubtful. I don't want to start another, separate debate, but I suspect the various sorts of bearings and pivots available have smaller effects than a radically different tonearm geometry.
The question that should be central to all of this is which is the greater sin: TAE or added anti-skate force? And the only difficulty in answering what should be a simple question is that so few people have an underhung tonearm. Is that because they sound terrible, or because we have misunderstood something basic, that was not even considered when the architects of conventional tonearm protocols were at work? Just imagine the fun if the sainted Lofgren was given a blind listening test!
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Sorry, perhaps I described it incorrectly. But my question to @pindac still stands. (As does the rest.)
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Perhaps for you and other gentlemans that could think like you
It was a question, not an opinion.
Your question came with out facts/why’s
Questions, honestly asked, tend to do so.
you " touch " almost all other in a bad way.
Careful. It is apparent you are not an English speaker, and you don't understand what you have just intimated!
You might be surprised to hear that I do understand analog reproduction is complicated. I'd be grateful if you weren't so condescending in your assumptions that you know better than anyone else. You might even try to answer my question, directly. Is tracking angle error a worse thing to hear than the effects of anti-skate? None of us can have an opinion, if we are honest, unless we have compared an underhung tonearm with a conventional one. That was my point. I cannot answer it, so I asked. Likely you cannot either, in which case please avoid insulting me.
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@pindac Was that a 'yes' or a 'no' to my question to you - that you referred to the floating oil bearing? Mysterious "Mechanical Interfaces function" isn't quite explicit.
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Frankly, this is all about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, unless, or until, we listen to the underhung arm in question. I have not, but I can encompass how and why it might sound better in my dreadfully simplistic way. I'd buy one myself if I had any cash to spare.
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Yes, I did (this was last year) and it took a couple of weeks.
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