Integrityhifi TRU-GLIDER Pendulum Tonearm
It is similar to Schroder's design but longer with no offset. It has several serious problems. First is it is very long. Long arms have much more inertia. Records are not perfectly smooth. There are undulations the arm has to follow but with longer heavier arms the cantilever does the following leading to increased levels of distortion. A perfect tonearm will move in only two directions. Up and down, side to side. It should be firmly locked in all other motions. This tonearm is not locked, it is floating and free to move in all directions at least slightly which is enough. Now it is trying to trade off the problem of skating for increased tracking error and longer length. IMHO and many others, it is a bad tradeoff It is an interesting arm but I would never buy it. It violates to many sound principles that are tried and true. It also will not fit on many turntables. |
@totem395 , Yes, I did not know they made a shorter version but the short one is going to have ridiculous levels of tracking error and be just as unstable. The long one won't fit on most tables because most do not accept arms that long. Some do and you could certainly build a large plinth. The only suspended, fully isolated turntables I know of that will take an arm that big are the SME 30/12 and 20/12 and the Dohmann Helix (my favorite). I personally do not consider unsuspended tables an option. A turntable must have a suspension that operates below 3 Hz. A tonearm must be limited to 2 degrees of motion. It must be held rigidly in all others. I will never personally consider an arm that is designed otherwise. Want a great 12" arm get a Reed 2G or Schroder CB. Better yet get a Schroder Lt. IMHO this is the most brilliant tonearm design on the market. Unfortunately it requires a table that will take a 12" arm. My Sota Cosmos will not. So, I am stuck with the Schroder CB a fate worse than death:-) |
@lewm , there are 4 degrees of freedom (movement); horizontal, vertical, axial and torsional. Theoretically a tonearm should only be able to move in two of them, horizontal and vertical. Movement in the other degrees will cause distortion of one type or another. Axial movement would cause something like wow and flutter. Torsional movement would certainly increase stylus and record wear and depending on it's resonance frequency, distortion at some level. Tonearms have to be as stiff as possible in the last two degrees to maintain proper geometry. It is bad enough that an arm operates in arcs, warp wow can be painfully obvious. Stick a dime under the edge of a test record and play a midrange tone. The change in pitch is obvious. An arm that has it's vertical bearing at record level will be a little less obvious. This is why Tri-Planar and Schroder designed their arms the way they are. The 4 Points are another example. Reed also does this with the 2G. I could own any of these arms. All of these arms are also neutral balance arms. Tracking force does not change with vertical motion. Most arms are static balance. Anyway I chose the Schroder CB I guess because it is a favorite of many whose talents and opinions I respect and I like Frank's design mentality. His arms do everything an arm should do but they look so simple, elegant. As for unipivots, they are a simple cheap way to build a tonearm. The two best unipivots, the Graham and Basis arms have been redesigned and have mechanisms to control torsional movement. Graham uses opposing magnets and Basis added a weird second bearing that stops torsion in one direction. The offset counter weight is then adjusted so bearing contact is maintained. It is really not a unipivot anymore. It is a bipivot. Adding lateral weights just lowers the resonance frequency. Good preloaded bearings are expensive and machining becomes critical as the bearings have to be aligned perfectly. It takes a very skilled person or a very fancy machine. Rega and Pro-Ject arms are a great value because those much bigger companies can afford the very fancy machine. I would take a Rega arm over a unipivot VPI arm any day. Can you imagine the arrogance of SME limiting their tonearm sales to their turntables! In order to get one of their arms you have to spend a fortune on one of their tables. They are great tables but let's face it, a great value they are not. |
@Lewm, It is hard to do a true gimbal pivot and keep the vertical bearing at record level. You have to resort to something like what Tri-Planar did. The SAT arm is a very fat gimbal pivoted arm with a very high vertical bearing. The price is also ridiculous. I wouldn't get it even if I had the money. The Tri-Planar is a better design. Oh, but you have to listen to it. Right, it is virtually impossible to listen to any arm in your own system without buying it. What other people say it sounds like is close to worthless. The Transcriptors Vestigial Arm taught me that lesson. You have to buy an arm based on it's design and quality of manufacture. So, you have to set parameters for what a good design is. An arm should be very stiff but as light as possible. It should have one wire from from each cartridge pin to the phono stage RCA's or XLR's. The vertical bearing should be at record level and the geometry such that the arm is of neutral balance. It's bearing should lock motion in the axial and torsional directions, and it must have a low friction anti skate mechanism. An opposing magnet system like Reed and Schroder use is ideal. I have learned to stay away from longer arms. They have higher moments of inertia and can not be made as stiff as a shorter arm without adding even more mass. The improvement in tracking error is not even close to being worth the added mass. I am all for tangential tracking. IMHO the biggest benefits are, no skating and a lower moment of inertia. The two that are ideal are the Reed 5T and the Schroder LT. Unfortunately, neither will fit on my turntable. The Reed is also very pricey. There is a German carriage driven arm (can't remember the name) that on paper looks great. You know how I feel about air bearing arms. |
You guys knock me out. Whatever any of you think something sounds like is totally meaningless. There is no way to calibrate the human mind. There is no reference. I have heard systems people thought sounded great that were awful, not only to my ears but they measured terribly also. @fsonicsmith , I have both tube and solid state gear, analog and digital. It all works wonderfully well and is all well designed and built. You keep listening to what other people think things sound like. Get a new set of cable elevators. I hear the new porcelain ones sound better than the wooden ones you are using. They are more detailed and the bass is tighter:-) |
@fsonicsmith , gallery furnisher is/are one off designs made for galleries who sell the to up scale New Yorkers for ridiculous money. People have been making fun of my English difficulties my entire life. I'm dyslexic. If it were not for my special ED teachers it would be a lot worse and I certainly would not be where I am today. I did have pictures of my old Sota on my system page but I took them off when I sold it. That was nine months ago. I just finished setting up a new Sota Cosmos and will have pictures of it up by tomorrow. Along with the cartridge you will see on the Sota is a Clearaudio Charisma. Those are the only two I have at the moment. The cabinet the Sota is sitting in I finished three weeks ago. It is a straight forward design. I let the wood speak for itself although I did do the veneer work on the wall section. Now down to business. In setting up system it can be either a stupid silly amount of trial end error (been there) or using your noggin and the right tools to do the job to end up with a much better result. It seems you do not understand this approach. Perhaps some day I'll get a chance to demonstrate it for you. I've been at it for 63 years. Maybe in another 18 you'll get the hang of it. I also was an enuretic until the age of 13. Anything else you care to know? |
@phantom_av Maybe because your bass has disappeared? |
