Larry, As you may already know, I own a 9 inch Viv and like it very much with all the qualities you mention. Mentioning it here seems to provoke certain people, so I prefer to keep mum. My cumulative experience leads me to think that surely tracking angle error must matter at some point, meaning there must be some amount of TAE that would begin to produce very noticeable distortion, but the mania over TAE is perhaps uncalled for within reasonable limits. Conversely, one explanation for the excellent performance of the Viv Float (and incidentally my old RS Labs RS-A1 tonearm) is that TAE within the boundaries exhibited by those two tonearms is less important than is the skating force induced by the effort to minimize TAE (by designing tonearms with overhang and headshell offset which enhances skating) and the efforts to correct for skating with anti-skate. In a conventional tonearm with headshell offset, the skating force is applied at the stylus tip; whereas anti-skate is applied very near to the pivot. Yes, this arrangement can keep the cantilever from being bent, but it must also put a tension on the cantilever in the horizontal plane, as it must transmit, along with the arm wand, the two opposing forces of skate and AS. Maybe that is not so good for the capacity of the cantilever to respond freely to lateral displacement induced by the signal in the grooves. Maybe this in part accounts for the success of the Viv et al.
Turntable advice / opinion on setup / sound.
Hello all you analog experts. I am seeking some advice, opinions and direction to try, based on my tastes and setup.
I’m not loving my current TT sound but there are variables that could cause this. For reference, my favorite TT I ever owned was the ClearAudio Champion Level 2 (wish I never sold it) because it was warm and had a huge stage.
- I listen to every style of music, smooth jazz to hard metal.
- I have to turn the volume way up to get the get the level I like which at times has hiss and a tiny bit of hum. Compared to digital sources which have none of these issues.
- I find this setup to lack huge stage and warmth.
My current system is:
- Rega Planar 8 w/ Alpheta 2 MC cart.
- Cambridge Audio -> Alva Duo Phono Pre amp
- Mark Levinson -> No 585 Amp.
- Martin Logan 15a Renaissance -> 8FT apart/ 3ft off the front wall and 3 FT from each side wall. I sit 9FT away from the speakers.
The turntables I am considering are:
1) Musical Fidelity -> M8XTT
What cart would you use?
2) Michell Audio -> Gyro SE Turntable
3) Clear Audio Champion Level 2
Thank you all in advance for any guidance and opinions you can offer.
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Indeed, from the link to Rega’s spacer, they say
That supports my view that small adjustments to VTA (as a surrogate for Stylus Rake Angle) make little sense when the horizontal equivalent has far bigger errors for conventional pivoting tonearms. Linn would surely agree on rigidity. You can have both rigidity and dynamically adjustable VTA and zero HTA error and zero skating forces if you buy a Holbo air-bearing turntable Reviews - holbo, which is significantly less expensive that the first two new tables being considered by the OP. Then if one really wanted to, one could experiment with different VTAs and possibly one could introduce side (skating?) forces on the fly by adjusting the tilt of the arm bearing the tonearm floats on, just to see and hear what happens
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- 185 posts total