OL silver vs. Clearaudio Unify

Twl certainly knows what he's talking about when he speaks of matching mass to compliance, but the formula is not that simple. It is the total system mass - cartridge mass plus tonearm mass - which must be calculated in the formula, not just the tonearm mass alone. Given this, the mass matching may work in the Unify tonearm. For a quick way of figuring this out, go to http://www.vandenhul.com/artpap/phono_faq.htm#a2, which provides a convenient graph to simply add the mass of cartridge and tonearm and match it against compliance.

I personally own the lowest-compliance cartridge ever made - a Decca - and I can safely say that the Decca will always work better in a unipivot tonearm than in any other, mass matching issues aside. I'm actually a fan of unipivots, as it was a cheap unipivot which first beat my modded Rega which I championed for years. This type of tonearm, while fidgety, always sounds lucid and musical. The "wobbly" issue is never a roblem in practice, as the arm stabilizes within a very short time once the cartridge descends into the groove. If you like the Unify, for whatever reason, then take a chance, it looks like a very good deal. If in checking out mass loading you find a bad case of mismatching, then there are other reasonably-priced unipivots out there, including a Kuzma and an Audiomeca (which advertises on this site). Any other fans of unipivots out there?

Hi Joeljoel,

I don't know anyone who's tried a Shelter on a Unify, so the following is my attempt at deductive reasoning. ;)

Several people both here and on VA have tried a Shelter on other unipivots. Of those, Graham 2.x users seem happiest and Spacearm users are okay too. Many VPI 10.5/12.5 users are satisfied, but I know of two who cannot track the Teldec 1812 cannons (at all) and have trouble on the HFN record too. Users of some other unipivots have been even less succesful, particularly low mass, undamped unipivots. Some of these arms just could not handle the energy a Shelter can feed back into an arm. They ended up switching arms or going to a higher compliance cartridge.

OTOH and AFAIK, no one has ever been dis-satisfied with a Shelter on a Silver or higher OL arm. I may be biased because that's what I use, but I have some evidence for deducing that the Silver is the better choice. OOTB, the Silver has greater stability than any unipivot, just by virtue of its dual gimbal design. And OOTB it works quite well with a Shelter. However, the Silver can be easily modded for even greater stability with a little invention of Twl's. The differences this mod makes in bass response and control during dynamic passages are quite amazing, and would be instantly audible to anyone.

Conclusion: if the performance of an already stable arm can be so dramatically enhanced by increasing its stability still further, it's unlikely that an inherently less stable arm would be suitable. Just my $.02, hope it helps you think through your decision.

I have a Shelter 901 mounted on an OL Silver arm and I am very happy with the combination. Just be careful of a fully suspended table if you do not have adequate isolation.

Johnnantais, thanks for your comments. I expected that he knew the mass of the cartridge that he was planning to use. I certainly am aware of it, since I use that cartridge on an OL Silver tonearm, on a Teres turntable.

While I can understand your liking of unipivot tonearms, I would be careful about applying that to this particular set of choices in question. The cartridge in question is not a Decca.

Here my ignorance shows: can an arm's effective mass be enhanced by adding weight at key points on the arm and/or headshell? (and therefore work with lower compliance cartridges?)