What makes a better tonearm? Any ideas?

[Primalsea]

If you look ar Rega tonearms the improvements seem to come from smaller tolerances and greater attention to details. With SME it seems to be about more complex engineering allowing more adjustments and complex conical geometries on the arm. With other manufacturers going up the range seems to be about adding more weight to the bearing assembly and with others reducing the weight.

Just wondered what are people’s thoughts on good tonearm design?

[walpurgis]

That's definitely a 'how long is a piece of string' question. Everybody will have a different take on it.

[Primalsea]

That's definitely a 'how long is a piece of string' question. Everybody will have a different take on it.

Well, a bit yes. But there are definitely different views that guide different designs, so would be interesting to see.

[AJSki2fly]

If you look ar Rega tonearms the improvements seem to come from smaller tolerances and greater attention to details. With SME it seems to be about more complex engineering allowing more adjustments and complex conical geometries on the arm. With other manufacturers going up the range seems to be about adding more weight to the bearing assembly and with others reducing the weight.

Just wondered what are people’s thoughts on good tonearm design?

Well have a look at this for design

http://wilson-benesch.com/nanotube-one-tonearm/

i auditioned several pairs of my speakers, WB Arcs, PMC and some others, listening to some of my LP's with a WB Circle One TT and this Arm, if I remember correctly it a Goldring cartridge in it about £500 worth of cartridge. What was clear was that the TT/Arm was very revealing and gave a great natural rendition and was very musical with the Goldring. I have often wondered how it would sound compared to my Michel Gyrodec/SME IV setup.

[walpurgis]

Well if it was me designing, I'd aim for an ultra rigid, medium mass, fluid damped unipivot arm. That should cover most situations.

[stuartypoorty]

Well if it was me designing, I'd aim for an ultra rigid, medium mass, fluid damped unipivot arm. That should cover most situations.

Such as the new J. Sikora Kevlar 12” perhaps...?

[montesquieu]

Well if it was me designing, I'd aim for an ultra rigid, medium mass, fluid damped unipivot arm. That should cover most situations.

Disagree of course :) Rigid yes. Mass depends on cartridge you want to use it with, so high mass for me. Don't like unipivots as a rule - hate the way they handle and I never feel they deliver quite the solidity of image and top resolution that a top quality gimballed arm can do with the best bearings, though the floatyness can be nice.

In my approach it's all about rigidity and mass - gimballed bearings do this best in my book, but only the very best ones. Good rigidity and internal resonance damping of the armtube as well. Do that properly you don't need fluid damping, though I accept it's useful if you want to use a wide range of cartridges.

A decent arm needs to be able to handle multiple cartridges whether by removable headshells or changeable wands - nearly 70 years of the LP with its myriad of groove widths and stereo/mono even quadrophonic (!) variability is far too broad a timeline to approach with just one cartridge. And don't get me started on 78s.

What I hate most are lightweight arms / high compliance cartridges, look too hard at them they jump about. What's the point in that?

[AJSki2fly]

F
Disagree of course :) Rigid yes. Mass depends on cartridge you want to use it with, so high mass for me. Don't like unipivots as a rule - hate the way they handle and I never feel they deliver quite the solidity of image and top resolution that a top quality gimballed arm can do with the best bearings, though the floatyness can be nice.

In my approach it's all about rigidity and mass - gimballed bearings do this best in my book, but only the very best ones. Good rigidity and internal resonance damping of the armtube as well. Do that properly you don't need fluid damping, though I accept it's useful if you want to use a wide range of cartridges.

A decent arm needs to be able to handle multiple cartridges whether by removable headshells or changeable wands - nearly 70 years of the LP with its myriad of groove widths and stereo/mono even quadrophonic (!) variability is far too broad a timeline to approach with just one cartridge. And don't get me started on 78s.

What I hate most are lightweight arms / high compliance cartridges, look too hard at them they jump about. What's the point in that?

I tend to agree with you on most counts, however I was rather surprised by the Wilson Benesch uni-pivot when heard it. If you haven’t then it’s worth a listen. If I ever have some spare cash I might actually buy one.

[Manicatel]

I’ve always thought that if you assembled 10 of the top turntable designers in the world in a room, to design the best turntable in the world regardless of budget, you’d end up with 10 different designs & none of em would agree on which one was best.

[paulf-2007]

Well have a look at this for design

http://wilson-benesch.com/nanotube-one-tonearm/

i auditioned several pairs of my speakers, WB Arcs, PMC and some others, listening to some of my LP's with a WB Circle One TT and this Arm, if I remember correctly it a Goldring cartridge in it about £500 worth of cartridge. What was clear was that the TT/Arm was very revealing and gave a great natural rendition and was very musical with the Goldring. I have often wondered how it would sound compared to my Michel Gyrodec/SME IV setup.
I've got a Chinese copy of the WB arm, it's not easy to see how that arm pivots but the one I have is a unipivot with a rosewood wand. I saw it on eBay and watched it for about 6 months, I messaged someone that bought one and he said it was the best arm he had owned and that he'd owned a load of good arms. I bought one and it is a very good arm. I'm not using it now as I have a stax arm. I may put it on my DP80 one day, it would certainly look nice with the rosewood plinth.

[Primalsea]

I’d love to hear a tonearm with a wooden wand. A good hardwood seems like it would have the right combination of stiffness and dampening. I’ve heard that some people think that they can sound a bit flat and dead but I wonder if there is a bit of bias due to preconception from what peple think wood sounds like.

Does anyone know of any manufacturers who pre-stress materials to control their resonant behaviour. I think Rega does something like this on part of their TT bases but wondered if anyone else does.

[paulf-2007]

I’d love to hear a tonearm with a wooden wand. A good hardwood seems like it would have the right combination of stiffness and dampening. I’ve heard that some people think that they can sound a bit flat and dead but I wonder if there is a bit of bias due to preconception from what peple think wood sounds like.

Does anyone know of any manufacturers who pre-stress materials to control their resonant behaviour. I think Rega does something like this on part of their TT bases but wondered if anyone else does.
That always makes me laugh, if it was made of glass it would sound brittle etc etc.

[Minstrel SE]

I think a well designed unipivot arm makes sense or certainly plenty of adjustment possibilities as with SME. The cartridge free in all planes with the arm compromising on nothing significant is a design challenge

A one piece casting back to the bearing would be a cert for me..anti resonant but Im not sure what resonances are in play here. There have to be some non negotiables and removeable headshells are a convenience compromise

Its gonna cost. Given the limitations of vinyl would you actually hear it and is it worth it? Thats the big question for me.

With modern direct high res digital recording, I really dont think Im going too far with vinyl...a good bearing and RB300 style arm will be enough for me