Question on FR 66s

Hi Suteetat,

I also have an SX777 Air, and have once put in the FR64S with great result! I am interested at your mentioning of an armboard for the FR66s.

If I understand correctly, you can only fit 9"-10" arms on the 777! Actually, not long ago, I missed out on the rare model called 777L (long) which can fit 12" arms!

Hi Pani, I have both the FR64S and the FR64fx, and in my experience the s is much better. No matter what I did, the fx just sounded boring compared to the s !

Hi Raul,

First, I have to admit that I have a FR64S and I do like it very much. If that means I like high distortion, so be it! But that is not the main point of my post!

You have mentioned all this distortion caused by the design of the FR, so I am interested to know how you measure this distortion as compared to those of the other tonearms. Maybe I have missed it, but I don’t recall you offered any scientific measurement on these distortions and resonance. If that is indeed the case, then how can you concluded that the FR has excessive resonance (just by the fact that it is undamped?), and these resonance caused the sound character of the FR?

I have no doubt you spent a lot of time comparing tonearms and headshelves, but if there is no scientific measurements (now I am not claiming these measurements can tell exactly how a tonenarm sounds), then you are no difference from anyone else here, in the sense that you also judge by what you hear. But then your conclusion would no doubt be affected by your own hearing / preferences.

Unless you claim your hearing is superior, or better trained, to others posting here, I don't see how you can insist that your viewpoint is right, while others ‘ are wrong or they just prefer the distortions!

Yes, nearly every audiophile, and nearly every audio designer, always claim they want to get as close to the actual performance as possible. However, judging by the variety of character of sound from the equipment and systems, I suppose we just hear differently!

So we had to reject those measurements other than the traditional ones that serve almost for nothing

___________________________________________________________

Hi Raul,

Thanks for the detailed description of you experience! However, it seems, in the end of the day, your conclusion still only depended on your hearing!

I am not sure how your method of testing could totally eliminate personal preference and be completely neutral. But even if you could, your conclusion “might” not apply to all of us, as most of us (at least I) would certainly have our own preferences.

several years ago when we designed the Essential 3160 " second to none " active high gain Phonolinepreamp…..

__________________________________________________________

This is exactly one case in point! If I remember correctly, several years ago, when your Essential 3160 was introduced, you did a tour to some well-known members of this forum. I am not sure how many of them bought it finally, but at least some of them decided to keep their original equipment, some way more expensive than the Essential.

I mention more expensive here not because I believe more expensive automatically means better sounding, but just to point out that those forum members could sell their equipment and purchase the Essential, should they wanted to, and still had cash left over in their pockets. So, price was not likely their concern.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to talk down on the Essential, as I have not auditioned it yet. As a matter of fact, I was following the development with interest. Only that there was no way for me to have a demonstration here in Hong Kong.

So, my point is that, while you believe the Essential is second to none, some forum members think differently! Are they simply wrong, or have less trained ears? I would rather believe they just have different preferences!

I found Soulution/Magico rather unmusical. Impressive sound but it does not move me emotionally

___________________________________________________________

Hi Suteetat,

I have exactly the same feeling as you regarding the combo, but I don't think this is a matter of less distortion. If any system failed to move you emotionally, then there is something wrong, or in Raul’s term, have distortion. Of course, all systems / equipment have distortion, it is just a matter of which set of distortion is more acceptable to you.

In practice though, I find that electronics with a bit more distortion (say tubes vs solid state, very gross generalization here or digital vs analogue), the one with more distortion actually sounds more pleasing and actually give a bit more illusion of being there (but not neccessarily more accurate in absolute term

___________________________________________________________

There has been this never ending debate on tubes vs SS, and Raul’s made it clear that he preferred SS.

Yes, tubes definitely have more “measurable” distortion. But, if you are old enough to remember, when SS equipment was first introduced, they already had lower “measurable” distortion than tubes, but they just sounded sterile and hard, compared to the tubes at the time! Of course, SS has improved considerable since then. The same thing actually happened to LP vs CD, the perfect sound forever, remember?

If I remember correctly, the audio industry started out measuring only THD, and when the result fail to correlate with people’s hearing / preference, they start measuring IMD. When that also failed, they found out that human hearing are more affected by odd order harmonics distortion rather than even order harmonics distortion. Till today, we still don't have a set of measurement that could tell us how a system would sound like to us!

So, our search for better sounding equipment goes on, depends on our own hearing and preferences. I would think, whichever system / equipment can move your emotions better, is probably the better system for you!

Hi Raul,

Yes, I agreed that there can be no discussion if one insists that he is always right, and any other who don't agree with him, wrong!

BTW, as you have mentioned, you also liked the FR66/64 once in the past! So, if we had followed your advice at the time, then we all have to make the change now! How can we be sure you won't change your mind tomorrow?

While I enjoy learning about the invaluable experience from other forum members, I would like to make my own judgment on the performance!

Since I have made my point, I would stay away from this subject! :-)

you don't change when you don't learn: learning is a proccess that can gives you a new " vision/status

I can see that you don't move from that old tube technology even in the worst place to have: phono stage

I don’t know about the others, but I think there is some contradiction there!

Since you have been wrong….ah, let’s say less “learned”, in the past, how can we, or even you, be sure you won’t “learn” that tubes are superior tomorrow! Just like you have "learned" that digital can be superior to analogue!

After all, “When we have new information true information on that continuously learning proccess usually time to time yo could change for the better…”

Don't know where you got the idea that I am using a tube phono! Actually, I have been using SS phonos for the past few years. But then, I just placed an order for a tube phono, which is much superior to my untrained ears!

I am not advocating others to use tube rather than SS, just that is my choice! 

Dear Rual, I really have nothing against you! Actually, I have followed your advice and got myself an Acos / Lustre 801, which I still keep. A good arm in its own right, but I prefer the FR64S!

Hi Rauls,

Thanks for your comment! Would certainly make an effort to try out your suggestion to see if it makes any difference to me.

Just to recap my phono progress since around the year 2000, when I got back into vinyl. I started with the Herron, than progress to the Pass Xono (yes, I know some members consider it grey and sterile, but not to my ears :-) ). In the meantime, I also tried out my friend’s Supratek, and got myself a MFA MC Ref preamp completed with the phono stage.

I was very interested in the Aesthetix IO Eclipse as I was already using the Callisto Eclipse, so I knew their sound character! The problem was that I never got the chance to audition the IO, that was until last week! Yes, the IO has a completely different characteristics compared to the Xono, and I found its performance vastly superior.

Now that I am so impressed with it, I just placed an order for a set. Is the IO the best? Probably not, but it is the best that I have heard (which may not be many, but at least including the high-end FM and Boulder), that is, of course, to my ears only! YMMV :-)

Since we are talking about alignments, I would appreciate to get some answers from knowledgeable members here.

As I understand, there are 3 popular alignment curves, i.e. Baerwald, Löfgren, and Stevenson, and these curves aimed to minimize tracking error in different sections of the LP.

With the alignment jig that came with the Graham Phantom arm, I can see the difference in overhang of the 2 different alignment curves (forgot which 2) can be as large as nearly 1mm. I would assume this difference is way larger than the accuracy built into even the cheapest alignment protractors.

As such, I am a bit skeptical when some users of ultra accurate alignment jigs claiming they got considerable improvements with these jigs. It seems to me that, even with this ultra accurate alignment, you are simply trading less tracking error in a certain section of the LP for higher tracking error in other sections! So, unless you are judging the performance by only a certain section on a certain LP, a considerable performance improvement over the entire LP seems unlikely!

I am not questioning the experience of other members, but just want to know if there is any technical reason behind that! Or am I missing something?