Tonearms longer than 12 inches


I'm curious to hear anyone's speculations on the
future of tonearm developement. What could be improved ?
As well, what lengths could we reasonably expect to see
in a pivoting arm ? 14 inch ? 16 inch ?
noslepums
I think this is true: The longer the arm, the more accurate one must be in mounting it in order to take advantage of the theoretically superior groove alignment. We are talking about tolerances well below 1.0 mm.

In addition, the longer the arm, the higher the effective mass for a given material, which must also be taken into consideration.
Clearaudio have been making a 14" variant of this arm for a few years now....
See :

http://www.coolgales.com/store/cart.php?target=product&product_id=31&substring=
Ah...not active links so cutting & pasting required....

I'll save you the trouble, here's the advertising blurb :

"The Clearaudio Unify is designed around a unipivot sapphire bearing that sits on top of a precision hardened steel spike. Other construction features include a stainless steel base, and an aluminium tonearm bearing housing.

This beautifully finished tonearm is hard-wired with Clearaudio's Sixstream cable, a six conductor, Teflon-insulated wire, and offers adjustments for pivot height (vertical tracking angle), anti-skating, and azimuth.

The mount pattern is identical to the popular Linn mount.

The Unify is available in several different configurations:

Tonearm length Nine (standard), 10, 12, or 14 inches

Tonearm contruction Black carbon-fibre, silver carbon-fibre, ebony, or satiné wood

Termination Continuous run from the headshell leads to a one metre cable terminated with Clearaudio's MBC RCA plugs or to an external shielded aluminium box with RCA sockets

Finish Polished silver or gold

The ebony and satiné versions have a slightly warmer sound. Please select configuration when ordering below."