Hana Umami Red or Lyra Kleos?

Raul, my question to you was, do you think the VPI dual pivot at $170.dollars would be a worthwhile stopgap measure until I can in the future purchase a gimbal type tonearm. The only other responsible choice for me is to use the Lyra Kleos on my current VPI JMW 10.5i tonearm as is, until such a time as I can research and purchase a better tonearm. If you feel the Lyra’s performance would be so much poorer in the interim until a new tonearm could be purchased, I’ll consider going ahead and squeezing out the additional monies to get the VPI dual pivot mod.

I need to be fiscally responsible. So getting a new tonearm may only happen some time from now due to other expenses I’m needing to deal with outside of audio upgrades, $170 for the dual pivot mod.is not that much more, so i could probably pull that off without ending up in debtors’ prison.

Mike

@skyscraper

If you were going to spend $4k on a cartridge and then $4k on another arm down the road - you would be better off buying a new turntable/arm package. None of the VPI arms are that great, and a change requires new armboard etc.

My recommendation would be to buy the dual pivot option and new cartridge.

Down the road reevaluate arm upgrade vs new TT/arm.

Something like Feickert/Kuzma 4Point9 combo down the line would far exceed the VPI combos at a reasonable price.

I would argue that an upgrade to Fieckert/Kuzma with a $1k cartridge ( example Audio Technica ART9 ) would give you a better overall result than buy-in a $4k cartridge now.

Dover, appreciate your advice. Another factor is installing the dual pivot changes settings like the azimuth etc. So since I’m going to have the tone arm set up professionally done, I’d need to get the dual pivot mod in place prior to having my newly purchased Lyra Kleos installed. That’s why I’ve go to make a decision on getting the mod now. as it can’t simply be installed as an add-on. I’ll have a little leeway as it will take some time for a Lyra to get here from Japan.

Not to appear stupid, but it can’t be helped, What part of a tonearm assembly. constitutes the "armband" you mentioned? That piece of info will begin my education on tonearms. Thanks,

Mike

Dover, I found a VPI youtube video that shows one of their gimbal tonearms can easily be swapped out with their unipvot tonearm. You simply unscrew the point to get it out of the way. Then their gimbal tonearm fits right into the same hole the unipivot point was in. I’ll need to find out if tonearms other than VPI’s would fit in that hole.

For any other interested rookies, the video is below.:

Mike

Mike. Hope this isn't perceived as sage advice  but maybe you should go with your "gut" feelings. Mount the Kleos to the unipivot and enjoy for now. These "experts" are trying to give you good advice but are only adding anxiety to your learning curve. This is also supposed to be fun, right? Get a new arm, mod, or whatever as you can afford it. I have the same financial limitations you have.