Tone Arms

speakerman1

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#1
Me I like straight, light weight. I haven't figured out why S shape tubing ones yet. Really I have never had it explained why they are designed the way they are. Maybe if they were I may like them. It just seems logical to have the lightest or maybe it is just the looks or my perception of it. A big honkin piece of pipe just doesn't look graceful as a thin light weight arm with a little diamond on the end seems more visual pleasing. Now here is an example of not knowing something; but it just seems like the S shaped pipe wouldn't work as good. I have no facts to back up my preference. I do know things aren't always as they seem. Anyone care to explain..
 

BubbaH

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#2
Interesting Larry. From when I was young I was taught to avoid straight arm tables. It wasnt until recent years I learned that some real high end tables had straight arms. In my experiences, any straight arm tables that I have ever seen were cheaply made component system tables. So I had no real basis other than what I had been told. I had a dual 505-3 with a straight arm, didnt like it at all. I dont consider it to be a high end table though. Im interested to hear more thoughts on the subject as well.
 

Elite-ist

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#3
I have a Pioneer PL-7 turntable which has the graphite-composition straight tone arm. I had been looking for the NOS Pioneer moving coil cartridge for it, but found an NOS Yamaha MC-7 moving coil cartridge, instead. Its sound is quite respectable for what I paid for it. I haven't had it in my system for some time, but I had recorded a few of my very first mix tapes from records playing on that turntable.

Nando.
 

Bob Boyer

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#4
I'm kinda in Larry's camp, geometry being what it is and all. Never really could make a lot of sense out of the S-shaped arms's ability to track accurately, though I'll say that for what it is, the original arm on my first turntable - an AR XA does a decent enough job in my upstairs system. Still, my experience has been with moving from my XA to a Dual of some sort in the early 80s, followed by a Denon TT with a straight arm, to a Revolver (straight arm) and now to a SME 309 on my VPI 'table. Been moving up from low mass to medium mass in that progression. I suspect in part that's also what's been available to me over the years as much as preference, though.

I'll take the 309 to the grave.

Edit: must say I always loved the Infinity Black Widow though I'm not sure how good it is by today's standards. Wish I had owned one at some point.
 

laatsch55

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#5
Bob I had a Black Widow mounted on a Denon DP 1500 with an Astrion cart. THAT was a killer combo... Bought it in 1978, and lost it in a garage fire 5 years ago.
 

speakerman1

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#6
Then we can go with length also. The Grace 704 is 220 or 222 mm from the spindle to the hole in the arm board. None of my others are that long. The more I talk about this the more I want to finish the Teac plinth. Gotta start finishing one project at a time. Gotta get at least one done. Bathroom first, table, scooter, then a HS duplicator. Graham has some wicked good gear for sale.
 

VintageShadow

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#9
I really think that S-shaped or straight having the headshell set by an angle means the same thing,, about straight being like that from it's bearing to the tip of the needle i never experienced one, it must be something like this one.. :)

 

Nick Danger

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#10
Me I like straight, light weight. I haven't figured out why S shape tubing ones yet. Really I have never had it explained why they are designed the way they are. Maybe if they were I may like them. It just seems logical to have the lightest or maybe it is just the looks or my perception of it. A big honkin piece of pipe just doesn't look graceful as a thin light weight arm with a little diamond on the end seems more visual pleasing. Now here is an example of not knowing something; but it just seems like the S shaped pipe wouldn't work as good. I have no facts to back up my preference. I do know things aren't always as they seem. Anyone care to explain..
I think that S- shaped arms were designed so that mounting your cart was supposed to be a little easier in that all you had to deal with was overhang. The bend in the tonearm was going to take care of the offset angle of cart.
 

8991XJ

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#11
There is so much junk going on with the tonearm cartridge thing that one needs to get involved to get it right. I just put together stuff that might work and don't worry about the complete acceptability of the system components.

This comes from years of having separate tonearms and decent cartridges. Ideally, one will match a low compliance cartridge to a very heavy tonearm and a high compliance cartridge to a low mass arm. I've done this with some gear I have picked up. One a Kenwood KD-600 with one if the heaviest effective mass tonearms available back in the day a Fidelity Research FR-64s, a 34 gram effective monster. Compare that to the very low mass ∞Black Widow at about 3.5 grams effective mass.

These two arms will not extract the most out of a cartridge that works well with the other arm. Fortunately there is some data over on the engine that will help provide info if one is so inclined. I use the data but not to decide on the arm or cartridge as those are pieces I already have.

With the low mass arms, there are fewer cartridges that work well with them, different than the old days when Shure made high end cartridges. Additionally, the moving coil cartridge, generally requiring more amplification, is more popular today than in the past and so more folks need the medium mass arms that get the most from these cartridges.

One of the main goals of this matching of tonearm mass and cartridge compliance is to obtain a resonance of the combo between the low 0-2 Hz of the record warp and the lowest frequencies on the record, ~20Hz. So a resonance of say 8-12 Hz is recommended.

So there are reasons to have a nice heavy arm and a very light arm. Whether it is straight or not doesn't matter if the stylus is at the right position to play the record correctly for the arm.
 
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