What Does It Take To Surpass A SME V?

Rock and roll! Let us know how it sounds.

@pindac ​​@rsf507 , Just like mass loaded turntables, mass loaded arm pods do not work. Low frequency sound is misleadingly powerful. A cement mixing truck traveling down the street will shake your foundation. Earthquakes are low frequency waves traveling through the earth. As long as everything is shaking in unison you are OK but, if there is any differential the cartridge will pick it up. As the turntable and tonearm pods have different masses and centers of gravity  environmental rumble is going to create that differential. Mass loaded anything is layperson intuition. The best defense against any environmental sound pollution is a tonearm rigidly mounted to the platter's chassis that is suspended with a resonance frequency of 1-3 Hz.  

A tonearm that has a "sound" is defective. The best equipment always sounds "damped" at first as people are use to listening to the euphonic distortions created by all but the very best equipment. Tonality or amplitude response is a moving target and people will prefer frequency response curves based on what they are use to listening to and the vast majority of audiophiles have no idea what they are listening to because they have never measured it. I can tell you exactly what my own preferences are because I have measured it and have the ability to adjust it in 1 Hz increments. But tonality is only one aspect of reproduction. The ability of a system to image is a much more fragile characteristic and is not so easily adjusted. It requires all aspects of reproduction to be correct. The pile up of euphonic distortions and phase aberrations destroy a system's ability to cast a convincing image. When is comes to vinyl playback there are so many ways the illusion can be ruined, extraneous vibration getting to the stylus, pitch aberration coming from speed deviation mostly from warped records, unchecked resonance traveling back and forth in the tonearm (old SMEs are a great example of this). The Kuzma 4 point is not over damped. The SME is underdamped! 

@rauliruegas , I'm not sure what you have against the TriPlanar. On paper it is a fine design if a bit overly complicated. I have played with one and it is well constructed. I have never listed to one in a reference system. There are too many very experienced people that really like it for it to be a bad arm. 

@atmasphere , You and Raul both love music and I hate to see the contentiousness between you. Raul can be very difficult to translate at times and he has a knack for saying things in what seems to us an adversarial way which he truly does not mean. We all have our opinions and can be in this "hobby" if you will for a variety of reasons which can frequently clash. It is why Howard Johnson's made 28 flavors. 

@dover , you are making excuses for a defective design. I will say this much less politely than atmasphere, who is a gentleman and a scholar. The ET2 and all air bearing arms like it are not suitable in any way, shape or fashion for high fidelity audio purposes. They put cartridges in such an unfavorable position as to increase distortion and phase errors. I understand the allure but it is based on the faulty premise that tracking angle error is more significant than other problems associated with tonearm design. It is in all actuality, minor. Trying to keep the cartridge tangent to the groove causes much more harm than good. Having said this there are two designs that need to be mentioned as they avoid the issues that plague most LT designs. These are the Schroder LT and the Reed 5T. 

@pindac , there are many beautiful, cool looking turntables that are poor designs. The Onedof is one of them. Anybody can tack a motor to a plater and spin the affair accurately. Very few designers actually have a bearing on all the seemingly minor issues affecting the performance of a vinyl music reproduction device. It is obvious that you do not have an accurate handle on these issues. There is noise and vibration all around us, with amplitudes our senses can not detect. It is these vibrations that the phonograph cartridge was designed to detect, it is a vibration measuring device. If you are the least bit inquisitive you can see this for yourself if you have subwoofers and maybe even without them. Put your tonearm down on a stationary record and turn the volume up. That motion you see in the woofers is environmental rumble, noise you can't detect but the cartridge can. It does not matter how massive you make anything, that environmental rumble will travel through anything, even if it weights as much as K2. This whole mass thing is lay intuition at it's best. It is totally faulty thinking. A turntable has to be decoupled from the environment with all parts fixed together and moving in unison. Any design that ignores this principle is defective right out of the box. There are other issues that affect vinyl playback performance most notable is making the record perfectly flat and coupled to the platter so that any resonance is absorbed by the platter and not reflected back at the cartridge. Lathes use vacuum clamping for a reason. The eccentricity of records with wayward spindle holes is far more audible (pitch variation) than tracking angle error. 

Fancy machining does not a good turntable make. I want my money spent on performance and sound engineering not bling or massive bling. If you have to have an impressive looking turntable at least get one that is soundly designed like the Basis Inspiration. 

@peterayer , You choose what sounds right based on, design considerations and measurements especially when it comes to tonearms.

@neonknight , I also have a Cosmos. The TriPlanar is a great arm but it will not fit on a Cosmos. That dropped rear end runs into the plinth. The SME 5 is a great arm. Origin Live arms will fit but I prefer the 4Point 9 and the Schroder CB. I have a Schroder CB and the only bad thing I can say about it is it does not come with a tonearm rest. Mr Schroder thinks they resonate and will not put one directly on the arm. I made a locking one and mounted it on the Sota's plinth. You can see it on my system page. I have both walnut and cherry in stock if you would like one. Otherwise the CB is as good as a pivoted tonearm gets. It is neutral balance, is adjustable for different cartridge compliances and has a wonderful frictionless, magnetic anti skate mechanism. It's geometry is also right on the money and it lines up Lofgren B perfectly. The 4 Point nine is less expensive. The wire leads out over the plinth instead of under and usually has at least one additional connection. The Schroder is one wire clips to RCAs or XLRs. Otherwise the Kuzma is an excellent arm.

@dogberry , stand alone tonearm pods are a disaster in progress. The relationship of the tonearm to the platter has to be infinitely stiff and non resonant. Stand alone tonearm pods do not meet that requirement or even come reasonably close. 

@lewm , I live in a bathroom community glued to the side of the greater metropolitan Boston area. I also have an excavation company in my back yard. Can't see them but I can hear them all day long if I walk outside. I hear and see them running inside if I but a a few blocks of wood under the Sota and turn off my rumble filter. Put the tonearm down on a stationary record, put the dust cover down so you are not subjecting the tonearm to any drafts and watch the subwoofers go. Sometimes I can even see the cantilever squiggle a little as something comes in around it's resonance frequency. We do have seismic activity up here but it is always minor by the time it gets to us. I have felt it on several occasions, very spooky. A tonearm needs to be rigidly connected to the platter and both need to be isolated. People will do what they will but, you will never catch me with an outboard arm pod or an unsuspended turntable. Yes, "whew" is more than appropriate.

@pindac , two tectorial plates moving at two inches a year cashed into each other and created the Himalayas, a rock pile 25,000 feet high. So much for mass. 

@mulveling , I lost the diamond off a Clearaudio Charisma without a hint of damage to the cantilever. I sent a picture to Musical Surroundings who got a new cartridge and a return packing slip to me in three days. Great service. Then there is the episode with my Double Matrix Pro Sonic but, I will save that for another day.

@dover, here you go again with that "decoupling the mass" nonsense. You can not tune that arm to any cartridge. It is physically impossible. Anything that is hung off that arm is mass that has to be accounted for. If you do not want the mass of the counterweight to affect the horizontal mass of the arm just remove it. There is not a cartridge made that can perform at it's best in an ET2 or any other air bearing arm. You can actually see the cartridge having trouble. Anyone who thinks these arms sound good has work to do on their system and needs more experience listening to reference systems. Most people have never experienced such a system because there are so few of them and experience is the best teacher of all. Many systems can sound ok, a few can sound excellent but it is the rare system that can send frisson up your spine. You will not ever see an ET2 in such a system. Your first move should be to ditch it. You would be better off with a VPI unipivot. 

@dover , I'm sorry but your take on the situation is wrong. Don't believe me, discuss it with a mechanical engineer.

@pindac , the outright performance of a turntable is not a matter of aesthetics, it is one of sound mechanical engineering understanding the intricacies of life as a vibration measuring device and what it takes to get all the information out of the groove with as little distortion as possible. If you want to add an aesthetic element without hurting performance parameters then it is your money. There are many cool looking turntables because they sell, purchased by people who do not understand these intricacies or are more interested in visually impressing themselves or their friends. Yes, we all enjoy our systems or we would not be doing this. On the other hand there is this endless search for improvement. That is what we are here for, to make our systems better. On the other hand you have the audio business world that desperately wants to sell us things frequently using very shady marketing techniques even outright lying to a public, very few of whom have the education to fully understand what is going on. On top of this we have a very tricky audio processing system tied to out emotions such that our audio preferences have more emotional content then sound engineering content. 

Can turntables with their innards scattered around sound good? Sure, but a properly designed one can sound better. For me the emotion lies in the music, the music system is a science project and to my mind should and can be approached as one. You just have to make it look good enough to get it by your wife:-))

You can rest assured that when I behave this way there is no reasonable alternative, just wishful thinking.

@mulveling , That is wrong. When you lighten the counterweight you drop both the horizontal and vertical EFs. You might be able to live with this discrepancy but it will adversely affect  performance. 

@atmasphere , sure but it does not change the fact that the horizontal EF far exceeds the vertical EF. You still have to counter balance the cartridge.

@pindac, It is not fantastical thinking pindac. It is rational thinking based on 5 decades of experience. I have made plenty of mistakes along the way. Knowing what performance characteristics are important and evaluating equipment prior to purchase is the most efficient way of going about this. Most of us do not have the money to piss it away indiscriminately. 

Regardless of what you think detached arm pods are a terrible idea and I have explained the thinking behind this. I am in no way shape or form the only individual that feels this way. 

@lewm , there are people ready to try anything to make their product stand out. Separating vertical and horizontal resonance by a little avoids there being one large peak, you get two smaller ones but blended together. In the case of the ET2 and other air bearing arms the EFs are so widely separated you can not find a happy medium. If you set the arm up to achieve an RF of 10 in the vertical the EF in the horizontal will be so low that the cartridge winds up leading the arm. You can actually see the cantilever drift as it pulls the arm along. I have actually seen them pogo ( a Clearaudio arm) This assumes that the arm is dead level, another big problem with these arms. This places the cartridge suspension in a very unfavorable position. I have never used a Dynavector arm but there is no way you would ever get me to buy one. 

@pindac , wrong again pindac. The Sota has a 1" thick aluminum sub chassis to which the plater and tonearm are firmly bolted. It is as rigid as they come. If you mean the suspension that is a vital part of any turntable that claims to be high performance. It is isolating that rigid sub chassis from the rest of this very noisy world.

@neonknight , The one thing about the Cosmos that makes life a little difficult is the tonearm board is recessed into the plinth which limits your choice of arms. Arms that I know for a fact fit and work well are the Kuzma 4 Point 9, Your SME, The Schroder CB and Reference, Rega Arms and Origin live arms. The SME V is actually a very light arm and is more comfortable with compliant cartridges. The vast majority of high end cartridges are medium compliance and might do better with slightly heavier arms like the Kuzma and Schroder. I opted for the Schroder because it is an elegant design. The simple exterior hides very sophisticated underpinnings. It has adjustable tonearm mass with three different weight cartridge plates and accessory counterweights of various size. It has the best antiskating device I have ever used by a country mile. Lastly, it fits the Sota like a glove. The other advantage is Donna is now very familiar with the arm and knows what mass the tonearm board needs to have to keep the suspension in tune. They showed The Nova with a CB installed I believe. The SME V also fits the Sota beautifully. Will the Schroder outperform it. This probably depends on the cartridge. It would most likely be a sideways move. There is no tonearm made that is significantly better than the V. Is your Cosmos up to date? Vacuum? Eclipse? 

@lewm , there does not appear to be anything special about the Korf arm. As you've noticed it has some design deficiencies.

@mulveling , I think that would be a mistake. If you want a less expensive arm that rocks the Kuzma 4 Point 9 would be a great choice. I think like me you are always window shopping.

@whart , go ahead and swing away whart. To start things off I do not have a problem with linear tracking. It would be the ideal way to do it. The problem is many of the designs cause more harm than good. Arms that are essentially pivoted arms that are jockeyed across the record on transports with modern controls could work fine. There is one German arm that does that and some older Japanese designs. It is an expensive stunt to do well as the mechanics have to be extremely precise and quiet. The German arm is some $200,000. The best current designs are the Schroder LT and the Reed 5T. The LT in particular is a brilliant design. Air bearing arms fail because of their extremely high horizonal masses and the rushing air tends to cause high frequency noise. They are extremely sensitive to level and tend to skate in one direction or the other depending on which way they are leaning. They are actually more sensitive leveling devices then the bubbles people use to level them. They are a very unfavorable platform for a cartridge. Yes, they work, but there is a strong tendency for reviewers and turntable engineers to avoid them for a reason.  The amount of tracking error in a well designed and set up pivoted arm is inaudible. The cartridge is a very sensitive device. It is also a mechanical device that has to operate within certain limits to perform at it's best. 

Your turn.  

@neonknight , Great, we have the same table. The Verismo is a fine cartridge. It will work on the SME but you probably want to add some weight to the head shell and keep the counterbalance as far back as possible. I have the MC Diamond which is a very similar cartridge but even less compliant. I would not put it in the SME but it works in the Schroder fine. I am not familiar with the ZYX. Do not let the high VTFs of the Ortofons bother you. Their stylus has a much higher contact area than most. I think you might also want to look at Lyra and My Sonic Lab cartridges. They are a little more compliant than the Verismo and would probably be a better match with the SME. I am not totally sure you can tune the SME to such a low compliance. If you can then it is not a problem. 

I developed a technique for getting warped records to seal. You might know it already but I'll tell you anyway. Load the record. Start the turntable and immediately press the lead in bulge down on opposite sides of the record using only the edge of your fingernails. Let the record spin under your fingernails for two full revolutions and let go.  It seems once you are use to perfectly flat and dampened records it is disturbing when you hear a warped one. 

Back to @whart , I've been up all night. Hard to sleep when you can't breath. Pardon my typing if it is worse than usual.

As for high mass turntables. I have nothing against mass as long as it is isolated. Mass alone does not isolate a turntable from the environment. This is easy to demonstrate. You can get an accelerometer app on your phone that will detect seismic activity. Put the phone of your massive turntable and jump up and down. Even if you are on a concrete slab the detector will still register. Put it on a Sota, Basis, SME, Avid, Dohmann, or Michell and There is much less vibration detected. Most people do not notice this environmental rumble as their speakers do not put out much below 40 Hz. Those with powerful subwoofers will notice it. It increases distortion and robs power. It can also make your house shake. I know a person who put his Kuzma Stabi XL DC on a MinusK platform and he swears by it. Michael Fremer has his Continuum on a MinusK platform and is also sold on it. These platforms are very floaty and a PITA to use. You have to be very delicate with them or you get the entire mess bouncing. They must really think they notice and improvement to put up with them, real or not. 

Mass can improve the performance of a given turntable. But it is totally unnecessary if a turntable is properly designed and suspended. I think the Rega Rp10 makes that case nicely. For DIYers it is easy to add mass to an older design to improve performance but it is not a panacea.

As an aside, I build my own subwoofers. each enclosure of the last set I built weights 200 lb and they are not that big! They performed better than the previous set but not as good as I would have hoped for. The enclosures still resonate and shake. I am current building the next set. Each one will be a lot lighter, about 75 lb. I am pretty certain they will outperform to old ones. They are harder and much more expensive to build. You only live once.

@pindac , right.

@pindac , Boo away friend.

@whart , Great job Bill, Putting the Kuzma on the MinusK is the way to go. Quite a chore getting the Kuzma on there and maintaining the balance on the MinusK. If you get an itch down the line you might have a look at the Dohmann Helix.

I believe Frank used an air bearing which diffuses the air through microscopic pores in the metal and not the much larger holes you see in most air bearing arms. this would put the whistle factor way up high, high enough to cause less if any issue. The demand for air is high with any air bearing device requiring a larger compressor. Does it have to run continuously? It is impossible to make them silent. The hush box is a good idea. The vacuum pumps used for vacuum clamping are much smaller. The Sota's pump is not dead silent, but very close. It sits on a ledge about 3" off the floor behind the records. You can't hear it at all. 

The Koetsu would be the best cartridge to use in that arm given it's very low compliance. I am wondering given the table is on a Minus K platform whether or not the position of the arm effects level. I would think the most effective way of finding level would be to counter balance the arm so that it floats horizontally then adjust level so that it does not travel on the beam. 

You did not make any comparison statement on the Airline vs the 4 Point. The 4 Point is one of my favorite arms. If you have to have a tangential tracker you might have a look at the Schroder LT, look mom, no compressor. 

Love the horns. They make a vivid visual statement. IMHO running only the subs on DSP might be a mistake. You need to use a measurement system to look at any group delays. If there are not any then you are good to go but if there are they should be eliminated, but the only way to do that is with a digital processor. The new top processors from Trinnov and DEQX are very powerful and run at high speeds. The improvement made in channel balancing and group delays far exceeds any detriment effect the digital processing might have.

@whart , I am very familiar with the HQD system having personally replaced 3 ribbons and two toasted Quads from overexuberant use of the go knob. They sounded so effortless tied to 6 Levinson amps, all the way to death. They were far from perfect. Their image was not realistic probably because they had an inconsistent radiation pattern going from point source to line source back to point source each driver with different dispersion characteristics. We made a system with stacked Acoustat Monitor 4s and RH Labs subwoofers that was so amazing I  continue to use that format 40 years later.

Although you did not specifically invite me over, I have been invited to the Ducati Tent at next years MotoGP race. I also intend on seeing the Formula 1 race at some point. The Circuit of the Americas is in your back yard I believe:-)

@whart , I was in the public health service for 4 years in Haleyville, Alabama, 30 miles northwest of Birmingham. I met my wife there. I never got to see the exhibit in New York but I have a beautiful hardback of it with pictures of every bike.

The Monster is still the two wheeled riot act it was back then. I have a 2022 Diavel S. It is a sport bike for old men. 

@whart , At this point I'm just washed out. While my throat still hurts I can swallow now. Worst sore throat I can remember having. Every night I swallow my vitamin pill with orange juice. It was like taking a torch to my throat not to mention the coughing fit that followed. The best remedy for sore throats is Ginger Ale ice cubes. The cold numbs up your throat and the Ginger Ale approximates normal saline so it does not sting at all. Canada Dry is going to give me a seat on the board.

Thanx for the thought! 

Mike

@atmasphere , I am extremely jealous. I would feel a lot better if I had my amps:-)

@pindac , Not Ariston, AR XA.

@neonknight , It the V is not sounding excellent then the problem is more likely with set up. First. check your resonance frequency with a test record like the Hi Hi News Analog Test Record. Ideally it should be around 8-10 Hz. I try to push it as close to 8 as I can. Then go over the geometry. The Wally Reference tools are a great a place to start. All of the high end cartridges I have examined are right on the money in terms of azimuth and VTA which means the Wally Reference is hands down the most accurate way of adjusting your arm. I must say that I have never examined one of your cartridges. The Wallyskater is expensive but it is the best way to set antiskating by a country mile. I use Lofgren B to align the cartridge. It results in the overall lowest distortion across the record excepting at the very inside grooves where modern records usually don't go. Next would be a worn stylus. How old is your cartridge?

The best way to do a second tonearm with a Sota is just have a second tonearm board made, mount it and adjust it with your second cartridge. Then it is only a matter of a few minutes to swap tonearms, much less than it takes to adjust a new cartridge. I am thinking about doing this for 78s. You can absolutely not use an outboard pod with a suspended turntable. One little bump will send the tonearm flying and I do mean flying. The only suspended turntable I know of that takes two arms is the Dohmann Helix 1. As he has not yet released a vacuum plater for it you are better off staying where you are. Mark Dohmann himself related that the best turntable for the money on the market is the Sota Cosmos. 

@lewm , It means that the stylus is perfectly vertical as seen from the front and has the correct 92 degree SRA when loaded at the recommended tracking force. 

@lewm , I guess my ears are not as good as yours. Yes, you are wrong again. Zenith is critically important. It is vital for phase coherence and syncopation not to mention constipation. May I suggest a jar of Citrucel?

@albertporter , You are for more experienced than myself and lewm put together however, I would like to point out the speed variability of even a mediocre modern turntable is far superior to that achieved by your typical somewhat less than flat and concentric record. You will have to look elsewhere for pitch consistency besides drive type. 

@lewm , I wouldn't know Lew. Since I have been studying cartridges more carefully I have not seen any noticeable zenith error. Having said that I have seen some pretty shabby stylus assemblies the worse being an inexpensive AT cartridge. I was not looking for Zenith error at the time. More critical than a frequency response printout, manufacturers should start giving customers photographs of their stylus assemblies. 

@neonknight , Good work. Great preamplifier! I almost bought one but I decided to wait for the new DEQX Pre 8. Since you are already digitizing your phono stage you might want to look into Channel D's Pure Vinyl program. It gives you the ability to record records in 24/192 and you can use software RIAA correction which is insane. You can raid friends vinyl collections. 

@albertporter , Do to my experience with early direct drive units I am permanently biased against them. Since I am no longer in the business I am unable to compare new ones. Best to stick with what you know. Idler wheel drives were a necessity prior to electronic motor control. They are an archaic design which should have remained in the dust bin of history, but then again people still buy Shelby Cobras. There is no accounting for taste. More bearings equal more noise which will get worse as the turntable ages. This leaves the belt drive which the majority of engineers that design turntables prefer. A turntable that "sounds" is defective. Turntables, tonearms and cartridges are not supposed to have a sound of their own. They should sound only like the music on the record. This is not a wine tasting competition. 

@o_holter , your experience with the Souther arm is typical. If you are the least bit discerning they will drive you nuts, almost as nuts as air bearing arms. If you are looking for the ultimate pitch stability you need to check out vacuum clamping. My own feelings about VPI are well known. 

@lewm , AJ Conte, Edgar Vulchur, Marc Dohmann, David Fletcher, Hideaki Nishikawa to name a few. 

@neonknight , When I got my Channel D Seta L Plus (a fully balanced unit) I had to change the RCAs to XLRs on my Schroder CB. I did not even have to trim the wires. I just desoldered them from the RCAs and re soldered them to the XLRs. It took maybe 10 minutes. You can order the Schroder with XLRs. 

The BMC is a fine unit but you should also look at the Channel D Lino C which recently got an A+ rating with stereophile. I use an MC Diamond which sounds wonderful into the Channel D. The Verismo is for all intents and purposes the same cartridge. Great choice!  

@neonknight , With the Verismo you'll want to set the gain to high. I doubt you'll feel the need for another cartridge for a long while. The jumpers will not pose much of a problem. 

@lewm, My guess is zero dB will be too low. The MC diamond with the Setal L requires the high setting and I have 4 choices. The Signature Platinum uses the lowest setting. I think this has more to do with the cartridges impedance than anything. It will be interesting to see how the Atlas fairs at 1.5 ohms and 0.2 mv. The Diamond is 6 ohms and 0.2 mv, the Signature Platinum 1.5 ohms and 0.5 mv. The Verismo is 7 ohms at 0.2 mv. It will have even less output into a transimpedance stage than the Diamond. 

@neonknight , please let us know what you wind up using for the gain setting. You will get two cartridge mounting plates with the Schroder, Certal an aluminum alloy and Brass. You will need to use the brass one. They do not come with a finger lift. If you would like to have one contact me and I will put one on for you. You can see it on my system page. It is very light. I use aluminum wire and heat shrink wrap. The wrap is to dampen any resonance the wire might have. As far as I can tell it does not affect performance. As for antiskating, If you have a blank record side the tonearm should drift slowly towards the spindle at the beginning of the record and will pick up speed as it travels across. If you start toward the label it will drift towards the label at about twice the speed as at the beginning. I adjust anti skate with a WallySkater at the recommended 11% for a 9" arm and this is what I see on a blank side. I track the MC Diamond at 2.5 gms and the antiskate just makes it with the screw turned fully clockwise. The Verismo has the same tracking force range 2.5 to 2.8 gm. Recommended is 2.6 gm but with the standard screw you can not get the anti skate high enough. Schroder makes a longer screw for higher tracking forces which I mean to order. I have had no problems with miss tracking. The cartridge flies through Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger no problem. 

I also leave my phono stage on all the time. I have no choice as the Seta L does not have a power switch. The battery charger is kicked out when signal is detected leaving only the connection to the batteries. The only items I turn off are the power amps even so my electric bill last month was $1400.00!! 4 months ago it was $400. Wonderful way to get people to switch to electric cars.