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Curved and Straight Tonearms

Over the last 40 years I have owned 3 turntables. An entry level Dual from the '70's, a Denon DP-52F (which I still use in my office system) and a Rega P3-24 which I currently use in my main system. All of these turntables have had straight tonearms. I am planning on upgrading my Rega in the near future. Having started my research, I have noticed that some well reviewed turntables have curved 'arms. My question: What are the advantages/disadvantages of each, sonic or otherwise? Thanks for any input. 
ericsch
dover
2,177 posts
 
Lewm,
You are absolutely correct. Oil in the bearings will increase stiction and can even degrade the sound substantially at worst. I have no issue if Raul thinks that the FR64S is the worst arm he has ever heard in his system. However as you point out he cannot possibly ascribe the poor results he has experienced in his system to an attribute of the arm unless he has deconstructed the arm and run extensive lab tests trialling changes to the arm and measuring the results to isolate what each component and design element within the arm is contributing to any resonances generated by the cartridge on playback. Even then, the results can vary depending on cartridge, set up and arm board termination. Rauls' observations are only relevant within the context of the system in which has has heard the arm. He does not seem to grasp this concept and continues to make sweeping conclusions as you have alluded to.
With my Naim Aro the arm tube is purposely undamped, the designers intent is to transfer resonances as fast as possible to the unipivot bearing, where the bearing design and low centre of gravity from the underslung counterweight are designed to add mechanical damping by about 6-8db, from whence the residual is sunk to the arm board via mechanical grounding..     

nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 

Dear Lew, The round plate before VTF adjuster has only decorative

function. To get inside the arm this plate need to be removed. This

plate is glued with a kind of ''weak glue'' but is, alas, not easy to

remove . When removed the first thing we can see is the spring

which has two functions. One is for the VTF adjustment the other

is dynamic function of the arm. The mentioned spring is ''loaded''

in grease which can harden as function of time. Dertonarm advised

''watchmaker method'' to make the greas liquid: ''put the arm in the

sun''. In my case this was not sufficient so I removed the old sticky

greas from the spring and put new ''fresh grease'' instead. The VTF

adjuster works smood since while possible resonances are

 supressed by the grease. Now regarding ''damping'' . I owned

Triplanar VII for some years but never used ''damping provision''

with oil ''can''. Nor deed anyone else to my knowledge. So the

Triplanar also lacks damping according to Raul. BTW you are

wrong about ''inanimate objects''. ''Der Tonarm'' means the tonearm

in English and both refer to an inanimate object but one of our

former member has chosen this name as his member name.

Yuo obviously ovelooked the real object of Raul's hate.  



genesis168's avatar
genesis168
408 posts
 
Lewm, depending on cartridge compliance, you can easily match with different headshells. There are headshells from 8g all the way to 18g so you are pretty much covered. Yes both the 64s and 66s are amazing arms till today. I personally own over 25 arms (lost count) and that is still one of my top performer.

I have modern arms like the Reed, Dynavector, Graham Phantom 2 and Graham Elite and of course the SME V just to name a few and the FR is just as good or better when set up correctly.  

Setting the FR up properly is the key. In another thread the correct P to S distance for the 64s was said to be 231.5mm and best aligned with the Dennessen Protractor. I have several protractors for the arm. A Wally tracktor and the Dr Feikert and they do not sound close to what a dennessen does. I have mounted and set up many of the 64s for friends and clients and all of them are shocked what the arm is capable of. 

Finally since this thread is about straight vs curved arms, there is really no best but more different. All types have their pros and cons. Buy whatever that sounds good and works for you. That's why you need a turntable that has the capability to take more than one arm.

nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 

Genesis 168, For those who swear by following the user manual

you should mention that ''P to S'' distance as prescribed in the

manual is 230 mm. Not 231,5 mm. The later is recommended

by the first German review of the FR-64 S tonearm by ''Das Ohr"

Magazine in April 1984. ''Our'' dertonarm was back than reviewer

by this Magazine.

This is of course the so called ''Bearwald geometry'' while Ikeda's

230 mm ''means'' Stevenson .

genesis168's avatar
genesis168
408 posts
 
Nandric, you are correct. I have tried both and highly recommend 231.5 especially on the dennessen. 

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