Discuss The Viv Lab Rigid Arm

I’ve been waiting for this thread for a while.

I have a 10" Viv Labs arm that I haven’t used much as my secondary arm. The main reason for purchase was that it’s easy and relatively affordable to implement on my plinth without buying an entirely new plinth or doing a bunch of legwork to figure out how to implement a more conventional arm with a tonearm pillar.

I have a Soundsmith Strain Gauge cartridge coming soon that I will be using with the Viv Labs arm. My main arm will be for ’orthodox’ archival stuff, and the Viv Labs / Strain Gauge combo will be for ’experimental’ archival stuff. I archive 90-to-100-year-old 78s, so it might be hard to hear any meaningful difference given the limited frequency response and lower signal-to-noise ratio. I think the Strain Gauge will have a more dynamic time-domain sound compared to the Shure V15 and M44 cartridges most archivists use to transfer 78s (especially knowing how to correctly re-EQ the Strain Gauge, which nobody else has figured out).

I still wonder whether I should just bite the bullet and buy a Kuzma 4Point or something roughly equivalent and tonearm pillar. I see there’s still no real consensus on what distortions, if any, are imparted by the Viv Labs arms...doesn’t seem to be anything measurable, anyway. Nobody can quantifiably rank the importance of tonearm design elements. As others have said, horizontal tracing angle error doesn’t seem to be as important as many think.

I'm still debating whether my Viv arm will be suitable for 78 (mono) archival work...leaning toward "yes" being that any stereo inner groove phase errors can be corrected in my 2-channel software when summing the channels. Small potatoes in the scheme of things. With 78s, there is always some level of phase error regardless of the stylus fit anyway. That seems to be the biggest beef with this arm. 

I tend to side with mijostyn and the 'audio science' side of the debate. In general, I'm curious as to how much of the 'science' side of the debate is truly measurable. Computerized measuring apps have come a long way recently, as has high-resolution spectral display. I'd like to see an arm like the Viv A/B'd against an 'idealized' analog setup or a pure digital source. If the inner groove TAE is truly significant, you could probably even see the distortion on a spectral display in addition to on an oscilliscope. It sounds like the measurements are small enough that it would be extremely dependent on the tight control of everything else measurable.

That said, as I've mentioned, I'm probably going to use the Viv as my secondary arm for 78 RPM sources because it fits on my plinth without having to spend thousands more on an upgraded dual-armed plinth or screw around with my workflow by swapping armboards every time I change cartridges. 2-channel tools can fix the phase errors. I mostly transfer 10" records, too, so I can set the null point to be optimized for 10" records rather than 12" records.

@neonknight Thanks for mentioning the Dynavector DV505. That seems like it could be the perfect solution for my situation in that it’s a flush-mount and doesn’t require a massive hole to be drilled in my plinth. I’ve ordered one. It’s a bit of a fiddly arm, but the Rigid Float is just as fiddly if not moreso. From my limited use, there always seems to be a feeling of there being some slop, e.g. if I pull the cartridge out and put it back in, I feel like the azimuth shifts slightly.The VTA adjustment is kind of a pain, too.

I’m not sure how the unique Dynavector design will track 78s--hopefully a slightly heavier headshell will have enough effective mass to track my lower-compliance cantilevers with higher tracking forces properly without resonances. Overall it seems a lot more scientifically-grounded than the Rigid Float.

I put my 9" HA arm up for sale a few easy-to-find places if anyone is interested. I’m still somewhat agnostic as to the discussion surrounding the fine details. Kind of tempting to try to put the arm to the test, but I’m mostly a 78 collector. Although I’m constantly exploring the frontiers of 78 sound engineering and restoration, I don’t have much interest in trying to break into the field of tonearm testing as a relative novice--I think I’ll stick with mysteries of the Soundsmith Strain Gauge for now along with the hot debate (in 78 circles anway) concerning digital IIR EQ curves and comparing them to their analog equivalents. That’s enough to keep me busy for months or years. For my second arm, I’m going to stick with something a bit more fixed--a few of the Viv’s adjustments were kind of troublesome with my particular plinth. I may regret selling it.