Discuss The Viv Lab Rigid Arm

Clearthinker, once in a while you don’t live up to your chosen moniker. But disregarding clarity of your thinking, have you found a single negative review of the Viv?

 @lewms arguments are correct. What follows is just an opinion. As for what sounds better or as for the Viv arm sounding OK or any other arm sounding OK for that matter has more to do with the sensitivity of our hearing which relative to the best lab equipment, stinks. You could also argue that what sounds good has nothing to do with distortion measurements until they are patently ridiculous. At any rate, viewing equipment changes as a natural progression, the Viv arm, and arms like it are not a step in my natural progression. The next step for me would be either the Reed 5A or the Schroder LT (once I have a turntable they will fit on). I think they both represent a much better solution to the problem. The only design issue with these arms is the vertical bearing can not be lowered to the surface of the record as there is not enough room in the vertical axis of these arms. If you have a turntable with vacuum clamping this is not and issue because all records become perfectly flat except for the very rare one that is severely warped. The genius of these arms is that they use the force generated by friction in the groove to power their mechanisms just as skating is powered in offset arms. As the Reed is a surface mount arm I just might be able to mount it on my table sans dust cover but I lean towards the Schroder as I think it is a more elegant solution.  

As best I can make out from their website, the Viv breaks a fundamental rule of tonearm design (other than the tracking angle thing).

That rule is that there must be profound coupling between the surface of the platter and the mount of the cartridge. To this effect, there can be no slop in the platter bearings or arm bearings. In addition, the arm must be rigidly mounted to the plinth (and the plinth must be both dead and very rigid) such that any vibration that might occur at the platter will be in the same plane as that of the cartridge mount.

If there are any differences (or decoupling) between the plinth and the arm, it will be interpreted by the cartridge and perceived as a coloration.

The mechanical engineering problem here is very much like that of an automobile steering and suspension. Any slop that is present between the wheel and the steering wheel will result in obvious handling problems and can be dangerous. The stylus is doing much the same as the wheel on a car does as it is the interface between the mechanism and the media. It must be kept in perfect contact with the media and the arm can't be vibrating or moving in any way above the locus of the stylus, otherwise that motion will generate a signal.

The RS Labs is the same in that regard: it is not rigidly coupled to the bearing. I agree that’s another rule breaker. Now we have to listen to the Viv. In all the other respects in which underhung tonearms like these two are rule breakers, it is possible that the rules that they break ( minimize tracking angle error, etc) are themselves not as crucial to best performance as we have been taught to believe. I agree, the notion of coupling of the pivot to the bearing is a design element I would rather not forgo. But even there, there are many who use outboard arm pods with overhung tonearms, and there are several turntable/tonearm combinations that pay little attention to that coupling. We have gone over that idea more than enough by now.

I had the chance to listen to the 7” version of the Viv as well as the SME 3012 on a friends all Audio Tekne system (table was a TechDas AFV).  I will just support that the Viv arms sounded fantastic in this system, nothing to make me think that it is fundamentally flawed.  I have had so much musical pleasure with Kuzma and FR-64S arms at home that I am not motivated to change to a Viv, but I can understand why people really like these arms despite the “design rules” they violate.