Headshell leads and Arche headshell

06-18-13: Suteetat
On Koetsu cartridge with long body, if you tilt the mounting plate just a little bit, bottom end of the cartridge body would hit the LP quite easily.

If you feel the cartridge needs to be so far down at the back to get the VTA right that it touches the record, there must be something horrendously wrong with your system, or the diamond has been mounted incorrectly. To get the bottom of the Koetsu to touch a record with a normal fixed headshell you would have to drop the back of the arm below level by an inch or so.

With the Arche, because the adjustment is close to the stylus, very small changes are the equivalent of very big changes back at the arm pillar.
You need to adjust the Arche by very very very very very very very very very very very very very small increments in your language.
This is the flaw in the concept of the Arche - very small changes result in large changes in VTA compared to adjusting the VTA back at the pillar.

For example if we assume the pivot to stylus is 250mm(10"), then to get a 1 degree change in VTA would require roughly a 4.36mm drop of the arm pillar.

If we assume the Arche adjustment screw is only 12.5mm(1/2") back from the stylus, then to get a 1 degree drop in VTA would require an adjustment of roughly 0.2mm at this point compared to the 4.36mm if adjusted at the pillar.

Dover, I think you may misunderstand my post a bit and I think that I did not make a good description of my problem.
If you look at Arche website, the mounting plate is mounted flat up against the headshell which is fine. Mounting plate is attached by a hinge joint on the side (tension ball point tappets according to Arche). You adjust SRA by a screw located toward the rear of mounting plate. In effect, you adjust SRA by tilting the rear of the cartridge down.
When Koetsu is perfectly parallel to the headshell, ie no tilt at all, there is no problem (assuming arm is perfectly parallel to the platter). If you start applying SRA adjustment on Arche by tilting the end of cartridge body downward, low rider like Koetsu/Kiseki with relatively longer body than usual, the rear end of the body will hit LP very quickly so there is not much room to adjust SRA with Arche for these cartridges. Unless I somehow misundestand the whole purpose of this tiltable mounting plate but this is my impression anyhow.
The screw is a few milimeter long and supposedly you can adjust from 90-94 degree so definitely a little adjustment will affect the angle much more than SRA adjustment via tonearm.

My problem with thick silver headshell leads was that the leads put a lot of tension on the cartride and push the rear end of cartridge down by itself without applying any SRA from the screw on Arche.

Nandric, I am not sure how the thicker plate will help low rider cartridge more. At the momdent, I just keep the tonearm completely parallel to the platter and keep the mounting plate perfectly flat against the headshell.

Raul, this a good question about the arche and the initial flaws inherent in the design. The earlier trumpets, say now that they were a little slow and out of tune, whoops! It is like, "oh yes, it is super...wink, wink."

So, from the origin forward the arche will continue to be further compromised by a patching process. A little bend here, add a plate there...to parapharse one of the group, "the brain was compromised from the beginning, right?" Slippery, huh?

Cheers!

If stiff headshell leads exert enough force to effect and alter the SRA, ie. the movement of the cartridge in the headshell because the mounting plate is on a spring hinge and not fixed, then that seems not to be a very rigid headshell design.

I had been under the impression that a tonearm headshell should be extremely rigid. What is the point of having a rigid arm tube if the headshell is not rigid. Or is this headshell and mounting plate design meant to absorb vibrations by being flexible?

Perhaps I don't understand the design of this headshell.

Peterayer, from what I can see usually, the hinge screw generally has enough tension to keep the mounting plate stationary in one place. When playing, there will also be more force to push the mounting plate up toward the headshell.
I don't think that there is a problem with this design per se
in this regard.
Oyaide leads are very stiff and when there is less clearance between cartridge and headshell pins such as in Koetsu case, the tension, created by headshell lead is very strong.
When I took Koetsu off Oyaide headshell that I have initially, I found a couple of pins on Koetsu was bent significantly. When adjusting overhang of my Koetsu, it also was not easy as I have to push against the leads quite a bit to get Koetsu back enough in the headshell.

I look a bit more closely at the headshell leads that I have and actually, it is not the wire itself that is very stiff but really more at the end of the leads where you have the heatshrink and tubing. You can bend the wire anyway you want but the joint and the heatshrink tube part
is not very bendable and you can feel a lot of tension there when you need to bend it. Oyaide is quite a bit more stiffer there than both Ikeda and Ortofon.Two heatshrink tube ends barely a space between both heatshrink tube/joint end for Koetsu.
Again, Syntax had not problem mounting his Olympos with Ikeda wire as there is certainly more space to work with and using leads that are more pliants in my case Acrolink, there is no problem. Whether I should blame dimension of Koetsu, stiffness of the leads or Arche design, you can all decided for yourself.

I usually stay very neutral regarding the two camps as I listen to both, appreciate the advise from both camps that I found to be useful. I bought Arche from local dealer with no special discount or favor from any particular camp and like it enough that I am ordering a 2nd one for my other tonearm despite problem that I have which is already easily fixed.
Sorry for bring up this topic as I did not realize that it would become a springboard for more spats among some board members.