What makes a better tonearm? Any ideas?

[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