Curved and Straight Tonearms

What "game" was changed by Rega pick-up arms?
I agree that the modern trend is definitely in favor of straight pipes.

Several type of arms here, straight, curved, S, J and others. 

https://www.stereophile.com/category/tonearm-reviews

Roy Gandy, designer and manufacturer of the game-changing Rega pickup arms, proselytizes that it is a straight wand which can be made stiffer than an S-shaped one. SME, whose arms in the 1960's and 70's (Series 2 and 3) were S-shaped, does the same.

Somehow, the OP's actual question about pivoted tonearms with straight vs curved arm tubes (or "wands") got completely lost as the discussion turned to turntable and speaker mass.  But most of the main points were made.
(1) As others mentioned, if the arm tube is straight on a conventional pivoted tonearm, then the headshell offset angle must be incorporated into the headshell mount itself.  As a consequence, many such tonearms bear headshells that are permanently mounted. This was a trend in design meant to maximize ridgidity from pivot to cartridge.  A curved arm wand (J or S) will generally have a higher effective mass than a straight one of equal effective length, simply because the linear length of tubing will be greater compared to the straight version. A curved arm wand will more easily accommodate interchangeable headshells of many different types and weights, because the offset angle does not have to be incorporated into the headshell mount.  There are all sorts of ideas and hypotheses about which is better, straight vs J or S-shaped, some of them having to do with resonance and some having to do with weight distribution across the S or J shape and whether one should compensate for that.
(2) Someone mentioned "very short" tonearms, like the Viv.  The Viv (and the RS Labs RS-A1 tonearm, which preceded it) is an entirely different animal.  Conventional pivoted tonearms have a headshell offset at an angle solely in order to achieve two points of tangency of the cantilever to the groove across the playing surface of the LP, using any of several standard geometries (Baerwald, Lofgren, Stevenson, etc).  The Viv and the RS-A1 have no headshell offset angle. Thus they can achieve only one point on the surface of an LP where the cantilever will be tangent to the groove, and generally the tracking angle error is greater for the Viv and RS-A1 than for conventional tonearms, at any other point on the LP.  The trade-off is in skating force.  The Viv and the RS-A1 will still generate a skating force (except for that one point where there is tangency to the groove, where skating force = 0), but the skating force is not affected by headshell offset angle, since there is none.  Conventional tonearms NEVER are free of skating force, because even at those TWO points where the cantilever is tangent to the groove, there is still a skating force due to the headshell offset angle. From my personal experience with the RS-A1, "straight: tonearms (meaning those with no headshell offset) can sound really good, better than you would expect given the much larger tracking angle error of this type of tonearm.  

@yogiboy

Good points and a good article marketing the benefits of thin wall - a bit like the benefits of Rega light weight acrylic plinth and platters (in the case of Rega the sympathetic absorption of vinyl vibration is most effective when using an acrylic platter as the material is closer to the properties of the vinyl and like thin walled speakers we are expected to accept the argument that "more vibration" is "better as the material dissipates the energy")

So yes I am aware the thin wall speaker was initially designed for BBC for light weight and portability and then damped with bitumen to reduce the deleterious resonance effects and then the "magical" benefits of more resonance were discovered.

I buy the advantages of portability and light weight. I enjoy the fact my JBL PRX615M are great lightweight PA speakers (light cabinets with light neodymium magnets) that are easy to move around for my band.

However, I don’t buy their resonance arguments. Why use a bitumen damper if the resonance is not a problem? And I don’t accept the claim that the extra cabinet resonance is beneficial - all resonance should be avoided for ultimate fidelity as any resonance will change the timbre of the sound. And thick MDF built heavier speakers can have bitumen damping too - so logically when damped and heavily braced these should be even less resonant than a thin wall.

Of course "beneficial" could be construed not to mean high fidelity but desirable sound to listeners - a warmer tone perhaps or more euphonic sound - I accept that and I agree Harbeth have great mid range tone (it is more the lower frequencies that seem impacted by this thin wall type design - at least to my ear)

My two cents of course. Maybe I just prefer heavier TT and heavy speakers. Certainly you can get great sound from light weight designs: speakers like Harbeth or TT like Rega perform better than very many competive but heavier designs. However the necessary damping required tells me that designers must compensate for the tendency for light materials and thin walls to vibrate with their own characteristic resonances.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions.  

At your price point, you can consider going a refurbished Sota and start looking for a good condition Graham 2.2 arm or similar.  The Graham features VTA adjustment on-the-fly.  That is one of the biggest improvements in playback quality you can make.  You could also consider doing the same thing with a mid-priced Rega or other non-suspended table.  They may not be suitable for your installation, because it depends on how well isolated the table location might be.  Either way, you have a lot of excellent choices to consider.

Take your time, do as many auditions as you can, watch the postings here and most importantly, have fun!  Good luck & happy listening!

@shadorne
You have no idea what you are talking about. Harbeth and many other British monitors use the BBC thin wall design for a reason,and it’s not for a cheaper build ! Check it out!
http://www.grahamaudio.co.uk/technology/cabinets/

@testpilot

Good question. While at it you could ask why are cheap plastic (acrylic) light weight turntables promoted over heavy plinth steel/wood traditional designs?

I think production and shipping cost has something to do with it...not sure if all the marketing hype about better sound is as real and tangible as all the production and shipping cost savings.

Like Harbeth light weight waffling speaker cabinets - I don’t buy into the hype but I do understand how a cheaper build and lowrr packaging and shipping cost is a big competitive advantage...

Why is it that most of today’s cost no object SOTA arms employ a straight arm tube. Where are the super "S" arms?

Just thinking,  at one time,  I had my brothers Denon,  I believe that it was a DP60L... Might be wrong,  but I had it for about 2 months doing a few mods, 1 repair and some adjusting,  but this table had interchangeable arm tubes... a low mass straight arm and a medium mass s arm... both worked well.  At the time,  I didn't compare,  we exchanged them based on the cartridge. 

I have had both,  shoot,  I have both now.  Overall I agree with shadorne as far as curves contributing to resonance reduction and mass for high or low compliance cartridges.... Although,  I have heat shrinked and used interior dampening on light weight straight arms,  also with good results. 

An S shape has the advantage of resonance reduction. The two bends add rigidity to vibration compared to a straight tube and flexural waves will be attenuated. Also a larger tube is more rigid than a small tube even if they weigh the same (tubes have good rigidity for their mass compared to a solid rod). Light weight straight tone arms have the increased risk of unwanted resonance due to standing resonance waves along the entire length.

Only advantage of straight is they are cheaper to build and can have lower mass for high compliance cartridges.

Most DJ arms are "underhung" to aid in scratching, whereas straight tonearm with an offset headshell used for accurate audio replay are overhung. 

My question was prompted by the TAS review of the Technics SL-1200G in their current issue. I'm looking for a table under $3500, not vintage. I like Rega products, but I want to be able to use different cartridges and adjust VTA without using shims. I currently use an Exact 2 in my Rega.

@chakster
Gotcha!
 IMO,cartridge and arm matching is often overlooked when evaluating the performance of an arm! Do you agree?

@yogiboy 

I doubt he is looking at a vintage separate arm!

I mean if someone would like to compare S vs. J on the same arm the Audio Craft and related stuff with removable artubes is a good option to understand which shape is the best for the owner. 

I have 2 "S" shaped tonearms and 4 "J" shaped tonearms and i can't say which one is better based just on the armtube design. 

S shaped arms allow for a greater pivot point distance than a straight arm - so less tracking error....

The pivot to stylus distance determines the degree of tracking error, and since the pivot to stylus distance is a straight line, different shapes of tonearms with the same pivot to stylus distance will trace the same arc.

The greatest advantage to a S or J shaped tonearm is it ability to be designed with a detachable headshell as the offset angle is built into the arm design

It looks like the OP is looking for a table that comes with an arm included. I doubt he is looking at a vintage separate arm!

I think the best way is to try the Audio Craft AC3000MC / AC4000MC with multiply armtubes of the different shapes. 

The last time I looked,most high end tables come with a straight arm. I don’t think it makes any difference,it’s all about the design of the arm. Take a look at this!
http://store.acousticsounds.com/index.cfm?get=results&start=1%20&CategoryID=111

Yes, I meant straight up to the headshell. Other than less tracking error, any other pros or cons?

The only straight tonearms are linear tracking tonearms, the rest of the tonearm with straight armtube have an offset angle of the headshell, so they are not actually straight, except for the very short ones like the ViV Lab for example.

S shaped arms allow for a greater pivot point distance than a straight arm - so less tracking error....