Discuss The Viv Lab Rigid Arm

The phase argument was originally yours. I don’t buy its importance either. We agree.

"TAE affects all frequencies but primarily high frequencies the distortion is not harmonically related at all as the distortion varies continuously as does TAE. All frequencies have a horizontal component except those in perfect mono dead center."

I can agree that most frequencies have both a horizontal and vertical component in the movement of the stylus. It is simple-minded perhaps to suggest that "low frequencies" are produced by horizontal motion, but beyond that, can you further explain the rest of your statement that I quote here?  Thanks.

Pursuant to your use of a USB microscope, do you correct for zenith error using it? Or do you find that all your cartridges are perfect corrected for zenith?  I don't trust myself to see a one or two degree error in zenith using my analog microscope, and indeed in most cases I don't see error, but the ZYX Universe I own has a very obvious error by the same method.  Therefore I assume it's at least 3 degrees or more.  I have not inspected the ART7 that Dave twisted to correct for zenith, because I don't want to mess up his adjustment; the cartridge now sounds so good.

I did find some papers on this subject.  Here is a long post from Vinyl Asylum.  The author makes the good point that TAE affects only frequencies encoded in the horizontal plane (low frequencies), and he states that the distortion due to TAE is Harmonic in type. That may explain why if there is distortion due to TAE with the Viv and similar underhung tonearms, I (at least) do not find it objectionable.  Also, the level of distortion is inversely proportional to velocity, meaning HD will be higher near to the inner grooves. The math is complex and will take some time for me to digest:

https://www.audioasylum.com/messages/vinyl/43557/tone-arm-geometry-and-tracking-distortion-longish

Finally, the post opens the door to think maybe the skating force is more obnoxious than TAE.

Mijostyn, It does not behoove you to use the term "scientific" in this context to justify any of your thinking on the subject. Your approach fails the scientific method on first principles. You are operating within a belief system that starts out with TAE = bad. But I concede that neither of us has the actual data, apart from Intact Audio’s data, to justify any claims at all. I can say that when Dave "fixed" the zenith error on my ART7, it suddenly sounded better. He also measured the resulting TAE which reverted to the textbook look for a well aligned cartridge in an overhung tonearm. This certainly is consistent with the notion that TAE matters when zenith and the alignment according to accepted algorithms are both correct, for an overhung tonearm (with AS applied and azimuth set to 90 degrees, as well). Can you find a paper in the audio literature where the effects of TAE on the audio signal were looked at with a ’scope or some other valid method, that quantifies distortion of one kind or another? I cannot so far. This subject is only interesting if you approach it with an open mind. And I certainly don’t blame you if you don’t want to buy an underhung tonearm, but it does hamper your capacity to make a judgement on them as a class. Like I said, I took a flyer because the Viv has received near uniform positive reviews, because I could buy at a considerable discount in Japan, because I have also had good results with the weird RS Labs RS-A1, and because a major company (Yamaha) has seen fit to produce an expensive turntable with a built-in underhung tonearm. (I don’t use the RS-A1, because it is very finicky and most of all because it dangles the counterweight from the rear of the arm in order to place its center of gravity at the surface of the LP. This leaves the CW to sway like a pendulum, literally on off-center LPs, which cannot be good for the cartridge suspension. But the RS-A1 displays many of the positive good qualities of the Viv.)

Mijostyn, please do a little more thinking before erupting. Zenith error has an equally destructive effect on alignments whether you’re using a UH tonearm or a conventional one. In both cases you lose null points and TAE is exacerbated. But, come to think of it now, with a UH situation, there might be a point on the arc of stylus travel where zenith error by chance corrects for TAE, and you’d actually have less TAE (maybe even a null) at that moment. I wonder whether Dave has looked at that.

On the day Dave "twisted" my cartridge (Audio Technica ART7) to correct for its zenith error, using an electronic method, not guesswork, my ears immediately picked up to the effect of the proper correction. And Dave’s did too. It was quite obvious that the SQ had ticked up a notch or two. So, with an overhung tonearm (in this case, Kenwood L07J tonearm on my L07D turntable) I certainly can hear TAE errors. Currently in the Viv I am listening to my ZYX Universe. That cartridge has never been re-tipped. By visual inspection using my Olympus microscope, it has considerable zenith error in the mounting of its stylus, in that you can easily see it by microscopy. Whereas the two other cartridges that have been in the Viv (Dynavector 17D3 and Ortofon MC7500) may also have zenith error, but I cannot see it by visual inspection.

Raul, You and others have successfully equated TAE with "distortion" in the minds of most, without ever having defined what sort of distortion might result from TAE and its audibility, apart from phase distortion, which I think is trivial compared to all the other sources of phase distortion that are inherent to home audio systems, let alone to vinyl. What is needed is a serious study of this phenomenon where measurements are made. While we are at it, in the same study, skating force distortion ought also to be measured. Until then, your complete conviction that you alone are possessed of the "truth" rings hollow to me. Is your close-minded attitude any better than the behavior of the AHEE that you so revile? And by the way, worship of minimizing TAE at all costs is a basic tenet of the AHEE. That’s why we have 12-inch tonearms and several linear trackers where the cure is certainly worse than the disease, referring to LTs that use a noisy motor or gravity derived by dishing the platter, or a poorly designed air bearing, to drive the pivot across the LP, and LTs with stubby arm wands that maximize the deleterious effects of even small warps.

By the way, Dave was in my house and demonstrated the negative effects of zenith error, using one of my conventional overhung pivoted tonearms and a cartridge that was correctly aligned to begin with. (This was months before I purchased the Viv.) The improvement in SQ associated with correcting for the zenith error of the stylus mount was immediately apparent.

Barney, are you saying that the contents of this thread bear evidence that convinces you the Viv tonearm and other underhung tonearms are “worse than the disease” of antiskate? Or what?

FYI, underhung tonearms do generate a skating force except at their single null point. However, (1) that force is lower in magnitude than the skating force generated by overhung tonearms, and (2) the vector direction of the skating force changes from pointing inward to pointing outward, as the stylus passes through the null point.  This latter would make it tricky to design an AS device for an underhung tonearm. even if one were wanted.

Have you ever auditioned any underhung tonearm?

Or that music information would eventually be encoded in vertical as well as purely horizontal motion of the stylus, as was the case in the 30s and 40s.

Raul, When I wrote that the stylus should always ride down the middle of the groove, it was perhaps a poor choice of words for what I wanted to convey, which I then tried to capture better in my follow on statement.  Of course, in reality the groove itself, because of its tortuosity, friction, and Newtonian mechanics, will toss the stylus tip around quite a bit, and this is sometimes an audible cause of mistracking.  But Mijostyn was laying down ideal parameters that cannot be perfectly adhered to, so I added to his list of idealistic goals.  In an ideal world, the tonearm and cartridge would be massless and therefore not affected at all by groove tortuosity.

Who would argue with that description of the perfect tonearm?  Not I. I would add one more property to a list of the desired qualities of a perfect tonearm: Such a tonearm should elicit no eccentric side forces on the groove walls, as the stylus moves across the LP.  That is, the stylus should always ride right down the middle of the groove, to the degree that its own properties (compliance, etc) affect is tracking ability.  This is where most linear trackers fall down.

Raul, I over-reacted to your earlier remark. We’re all here to learn. And as I’ve said, I am in no position to make a final judgement except to say the Viv has no glaring audible issues compared to the conventional pivoted tonearms I own.

Sure. Whatever you say.  That must be why I also like the 3160.

Yes, maybe.  I still have more work to do that requires just listening. My opinion is that the special sound quality of this tonearm has more to do with the underhung geometry than with low friction.

Correct.  If you use the headshell supplied with the tonearm, it would not be possible to twist the cartridge with respect to the long axis of the headshell, unless you somehow modify the headshell.  However, the tonearm accepts all standard headshells, so it might be possible to use a conventional headshell and twist the cartridge at an angle so as to effect a "conventional" geometry, with the stylus overhanging the spindle.  Also, there exist a very few headshells that incorporate the offset angle into the headshell mount, meant for mounting on a straight pipe arm wand.  I think Garrard made a tonearm like that.  Such a headshell could also be used.

As to your first question, no, I have not removed the O-ring dampers from the arm wand.

Overhang geometry requires a headshell offset angle, else you get very extreme TAE and no null point anywhere.

Pindac, What I pointed is that in his interview posted on Youtube in Japanese but with English subtitles, Akimoto-san (inventor of the Viv Rigid Float tonearm) says his main goal was lowest possible friction. Hence the pivot floating on an oil bath. Just exactly why it is magnetic oil I still do not understand, but I would guess that he uses magnetic attraction to stabilize the assembly. Surprisingly, to me, he makes no mention of the underhang geometry in that short video. It might be interesting to note that when my son was conversing with Akimoto-san prior to my purchase, he asked my son why I wanted one.  By this I think he was genuinely curious about the genesis of my interest.

As far as I am concerned, I plan to continue to listen to this tonearm and to compare various cartridges for performance in the Viv vs in one of my conventional pivoted tonearms, using the same turntable and the same system in each arm of the study. I’ll post my findings as they happen, but I am not interested in arguing with anyone about the basic principles involved.  I have no reason to believe I could change anyone's mind, nor is that my main goal.

I found a video on Youtube that shows the pivot mechanism in action, totally removed from the shroud that otherwise makes it impossible to see it. The problem is there is only one view and no narrative. Just go to Youtube and search on "Viv Float tonearm", and you can find the video. The arm wand appears to be mounted on a rectangular platform that floats on the magnetic oil bath. Lateral motion of the platform appears to be prohibited by a raised lip around the edges of the circular oil bath. This physical arrangement conforms to my findings with pulling, pushing, or twisting the arm wand; it’s quite stable and quite low in friction. (I also found a video of an interview (in Japanese) with the designer, Akimoto-san.  It seems that ultra-low friction was a major design goal.  He does not say anything about geometry.) But to me, that is all beside the point. The point for me is the underhung geometry. Of course, it is impossible to separate the two oddities of this tonearm when assessing its sonic virtues.

I won't get into the meat of your post, but the pivot is not a "floating golf ball". Because it is totally enclosed, in order to keep the magnetic oil bath from spilling, I cannot really see what's going on there, but I suspect it is a constrained unipivot, constrained by magnetism. It's definitely constrained, because you cannot jostle the arm wand by twisting, pulling, or pushing, so long as you use reasonable force.

I don’t understand your last post.

Pindac, what you want to do, which is a logical way to compare overhang to underhang, seems to have been done by Intact Audio with a Schroeder tonearm. Perhaps Dave (aka Intact Audio) can say more. I think the headshell is held at an angle, on some Schroeder tonearms, by a single screw, making it easy to set offset to zero. Then you’d just have to move the pivot back away from the spindle to achieve underhang.

And my point, which apparently you are intent upon ignoring, is that the theory would predict that the Viv should sound grossly distorted (your term) compared to any decent overhung pivoted tonearm with headshell offset, and it does not, in my hands in my system to my ears. (And also apparently to many other pairs of ears.)  That proposition leaves aside the question of whether the Viv is better or not, compared to conventional tonearms. You are cordially invited to come have a listen, if you happen to be in the Washington, DC, area. 

From now on, I promise to credit Lofgren and only Lofgren with the algorithm that led to modern pivoted tonearm design. I don't care who gets the credit, and it has nothing at all to do with the issue at hand.  That is what I meant by having no dog in that fight.  It's an aphorism used by native English speakers. My real point is that his work was to solve the problem of how to minimize TAE with a pivoted tonearm. That's purely a question of geometry. 

Dear Raul, I was wondering what took you so long to comment on my report. I am trying to take the line of least resistance, which is this: If minimizing TAE at the expense of all other possible sources of aberrant forces was so vitally important, then the Viv tonearm ought to sound awful, or at least obviously worse than any reasonably well aligned conventional pivoted tonearm. But we have testimony from many others and now also my own testimony, that it does not sound awful or even worse than any of my four other conventional pivoted tonearms, using any of 3 cartridges that I have owned for a long time and heard previously on good conventional pivoted tonearms. I have no interest in convincing you of anything, but you cannot explain away my results by insinuating that I am not a qualified listener or that my equipment is not qualified to reveal obvious problems due to excessive TAE. (Well, maybe you privately think my Beveridge-based system is not good enough, but most would not.) As many others have tried to get across to you, "I like it", is not a trivial quality when evaluating audio products. Because after all, why are you using what you use? Because "you like it". (Yes, I know you believe you have developed superior listening skills that enable you to choose components that contribute least to "distortions". Standing on that high horse, you can always dismiss commentary that runs against your strong belief system.) Anyway, I hold you in high regard, but I am not surprised at your comments here.

Quibbling about who did what, Lofgren vs Baerwald, or whoever, is totally beside the point. If you think Lofgren should receive most of the credit for the idea of stylus overhang cum headshell offset angle, that is fine with me. I have no dog in that fight.

What interests me is that the idea of an overhung pivoted tonearm seems to date back to about 1940, when Lofgren and Baerwald published their solutions to a question which seems to have been how to devise a pivoted tonearm that minimizes tracking angle error. Those gentlemen seem to have approached the problem as a mathematical or geometrical one, purely. And so their papers introduced the idea of having the cartridge overhang the spindle and then twisting the headshell with respect to a straight line emanating from the pivot. They did this work during what was still a very primitive era in home audio. Stereo did not exist, and most disc players were still of the wind-up variety. Many still used wholly mechanical Victrolas. How it came to be that their work, and also Stevenson’s, was universally adopted by tonearm manufacturers over time is something I would like to know more about. I suspect some major players adopted the idea and eventually everyone else followed suit without much further thought or debate. (I am certainly in no position to say, nor would I wish to claim, that the conventional design is all wrong or even that it is not optimal.)

Based on manual pushing, pulling, and twisting, I don’t detect much slop in the Viv bearing. None in the fore and aft directions and a teeny bit if you twist with more force than ever occurs naturally during use. I don’t know how this compares to the Schroeder.

Except where there’s a pre-existing zenith error of > or = 3 degrees. In that case even an overhang may have a >3 degree net TAE error.

I enjoy a spirited exchange, and I do apologize if my responses were offensive. I do appreciate your open-mindedness regarding the tonearm itself or at least my opinion of it. 

Red herring. I am not using a spring-suspended TT. In fact, the Lenco is mass loaded and then isolated from below by energy absorbing feet and shelf and stand sitting on a very inert floor. If you are saying that you use a SOTA or other spring-suspended TT, and if this issue is of vital importance to you, then perhaps you ought not to consider the Viv. Anyway, the tonearm mounting board on a SOTA moves in unison with the platter and bearing; you could mount a Viv on that arm board. However, I know you will say it’s not bolted down and therefore won’t make you happy, but actually how many tonearms are held in place with much more than 2 lbs of force?  (I actually think there may be threaded inserts in the bottom of the base that do permit holding it down with machine screws; I will have to check.)

But my original point was and is that the arm is heavily weighted, at least 2 lbs, so that when you sit it on a plinth surface that is in turn well coupled to the platter bearing, then there is a sort of coupling. This is not "like a pod" in that external forces can only disturb the Viv to the same extent that such forces might disturb the bearing; there is only one pathway (through the feet that support the slate plinth) from the shelf into both the Viv and the bearing assembly. Many other well regarded conventional pivoted tonearms are designed to sit on top of the plinth; these do not require a hole for a vertical shaft that supports the bearing and therefore you could argue they are not firmly coupled by imbedding into a formal tonearm mount. For examples, the Dynavector DV505, the Triplanar, and most of the Reed tonearms. I am sure there are others. There are some users of the DV505 who do not fix it with screws to the plinth; they just set it down on top. That would be "less coupled" than with the much heavier Viv. Also, there are many linear trackers that are only weakly coupled to the bearing by virtue of how they need to be mounted. Anyway, I can only report what I have done and the results as I hear them. I am certainly a believer in the need to couple the arm to the bearing, which is why I am happy my slate plinth I had made for the Lenco has room for the 9-inch Viv.  The whole issue is a bit moot, since the Lenco sits on an energy absorbent shelf over a poured concrete floor 8 feet below ground level in my suburban bus-, truck-, and train-free home environment.

It’s “masturbation”.

I don’t like the brush, either, but that has nothing to do with “scrubbing”. If the whole thing is a red herring, why didn’t anyone on DIYAudio challenge it? I agree, it’s not easy to visualize. The visible wiggle only occurred in the YouTube videos when they introduced resonant frequency test tones superimposed on the audible test tone. I found the videos most convincing.

You’re probably correct. 

Where did you get the Viv protractor? I wonder whether they’re all the same or different for different lengths.

This is using the tonearm where the pivot bearings are offset to match headshell offset?  Or if not, what tonearm? I'd be willing to lend you my RS Labs RS-A1, if you're interested.

Was thinking the same thing, not so much in terms of that phrase "cantilever haze" (with which I am not familiar), but of the fact that cartridges with a very short cantilever might be less subject to the phenomenon of horizontal scrubbing. For what it's worth, my DV 17D3, with its very short cantilever, sounds particularly special (meaning especially improved) on the Viv tonearm. Just food for thought.

Dogberry, Thank you so much for finding and posting the thread from DIYAudio. It's a very valuable contribution to this thread.  I also finally see why the RS Labs RS-A1 might actually benefit from its weirdly raised pivot (which aligns the arm wand with cantilever VTA and thereby reduces vertical FM modulation).  Too bad that this is done at the expense of some other factors.  Nevertheless, the main issue is horizontal scrubbing and how it is greatly increased by headshell offset angle. I hope that some others who are dead set against underhung tonearms with zero headshell offset will read the DIYAudio thread and above all, watch and listen to the Youtube videos provided therein.

Yes, I think it makes sense to assure that the single null point falls somewhere on the playable surface of the LP, and for many reasons known to both of us, it seems a good idea to place it nearer to the innermost grooves than the outermost grooves. That minimizes both TAE and skating force. And my listening suggests it sounds best, which is the main goal.

Raul, I have more or less done such experiments already. The only way to get any null point on the playing surface of an LP, with the Viv or any other tonearm that has zero headshell offset, is to mount the tonearm with underhang. If you mount the tonearm with "no underhang or overhang", or in other words with the stylus tip over the center of the spindle, your null point is at the spindle, which of course is useless. If you mount the tonearm with overhang, there is also no useable null point. This is how Lofgren et al came to the idea of headshell offset for an overhung tonearm, I would guess. The L-shaped template supplied with the Viv Float tonearm puts the single null point about 90mm from the spindle, or about 2/3 of the distance from the outermost groove to the innermost groove. Interestingly, Dave Slagle predicted that would be about optimal too. I have found that to extract the best performance, the cartridge ought to be mounted using that template. Even a cm difference in mounting (with respect to the distance from the pivot or the stylus to the spindle) places the single null point either on the label or way out on the edge of the LP, and you lose the magic. (Or at least the magic that I hear.)

I agree with Dogberry. The business of extrapolating from VTF to a quantity in "pounds per square inch" said to represent the horrific pressure on an LP groove, is a red herring of the first order.

The cause of friction is gravity, in this case..

No pod! Pod is an option if you can’t fit it on the plinth surface, for the Nth time I’ve said it. I’m not using a pod.

Dave, on the one particular LP I sampled, 72mm from the spindle is nearly the innermost playable groove. The actual recommended distance of ~90mm from the spindle is at least two-thirds of the way from outermost to innermost on that particular LP. Of course, one is free to ignore the template.

What I was commenting on is the lower limit of the necessary distance between the base of the Viv and the stylus tip, if one wants to level the arm wand, which is 45mm. I neglected to mention that if the base of the arm is situated so that the distance needs to be greater than 45mm, then the upper part of the arm which carries the pivot and etc, can be raised an additional 10-20mm and fixed in place with a set screw. Thanks for pointing that out.

The point I most wanted to get across is that, if you take as gospel the emphatic declarations that this tonearm and others like it cannot possibly work because of excessive TAE or whatever else, then the result of my listening tests should have been disastrous, on the negative side. This is decidedly not the case. In fact, I find myself listening to the Viv/ZYX most of the time, even though I have five other tonearm/cartridge combinations at my disposal at any time.

It's good to know you've read all my many posts in which I mentioned that underhung tonearms generate a skating force, except at the null point where.... there is zero skating force, in contradistinction to conventional overhung tonearms which generate a skating force even at their two null points, owing to the headshell offset angle. 

As for the rest of your post, what I find so far with each of 3 cartridges that I have extensively audition on conventional tonearms, is that the Viv sounds excellent in every respect and even has some uniquely appealing qualities that I would say add to the sense of verisimilitude with recorded music on LPs.  And that's what we are after, TAE notwithstanding.

I think the whole point is that minimizing TAE is not so critical or rather that minimizing skating force is more important. But I will measure the template and see exactly where the null is in mm from spindle.

OK. I just measured from the center of the hole in the template for the spindle to the center of the much smaller hole in the template for the stylus tip, using a Matatuyo caliper, 89.7mm

It’s based on the mounting template provided. IIRC the null point ends up about mid way across the playing surface but I’d have to check.

Correction: the stylus underhangs the spindle by the distance of the spindle from the arc described by the stylus once it is set to produce a single null point at the center of the playing surface. Not quite what I wrote above.

Viv (not "vivid") supply a mounting template which is an L-shaped piece of plastic into which a hole is drilled for the spindle. You then place the template over the spindle and align the arm wand to be in line with the other leg of the "L", and set it up so the stylus falls into a tiny hole at the junction between the two legs of the L. Very, very simple in practice if not in my description. This sets the tonearm so that the single null point is about at the middle of the playing surface of a typical LP. Thus the stylus tip will underhang the spindle by the distance from the center of the spindle to the middle of the playing surface.  I gather that some do use an outboard pod in order to achieve the proper VTA, because the pod can be set up to be as short as you want so as to permit the needed min 45mm clearance.

Azimuth is fully adjustable by loosening a screw near the pivot end of the arm wand and then rotating the arm wand with respect to the pivot. I described my one issue with VTA. In order to achieve a level parallel to the LP surface, the distance from the arm wand to the bottom of the base of the tonearm has to be at least 45mm. (More distance is no problem, as you can raise the pivot off its base and then use a set screw to keep it in place.) On my Lenco, in order to achieve the minimum 45mm, I have to use my Boston Audio Mat2, which is 5mm thick, on the Lenco platter and then also shim the cartridge in the headshell, using a 3mm shim.

Based on all other writings on the subject of “pod”, I define a pod as a separate base or stand or support structure used for the sole purpose of supporting a tonearm mounted outboard of the plinth, never on the plinth. The truncated conical structure seen in your photo IS an inseparable part of the tonearm housing the pivot, a well filled with magnetic oil, the cueing device, and the RCA jacks with ground lug. It is heavily weighted to the tune of ~2 lbs, probably by a lead slug incorporated into the base. It sits directly on top of the 65 lb slate plinth that houses the Lenco. You could sit the Viv on a true pod outboard of the TT, but I would not.

Incidentally, I don’t consider adopting the Viv to have been a courageous act, as it has already received many very favorable reviews with no exceptions that I have found on the internet. This is notwithstanding the negative comments by some who’ve posted on this thread without ever having seen much less heard this tonearm. If there had been a lot of negativity among actual reviewers, I probably wouldn’t have bothered.

What weighs ~2 lbs is the base of the tonearm itself which houses the pivot and the magnetic oil bath. That sits directly on the surface of the slate plinth. To be clearer, I am not using any outboard pod at all.

Doggie, what this experience suggests to me, and I am far from drawing a definitive conclusion, is that the standard alignments yield a lot of skating force in order to minimize TAE, and such alignments then require the application of anti-skate as a cure for skating. Like you suggest, either skating force or anti-skate and the way in which it is applied may be more damaging to SQ than TAE.  This is also consistent with the experience of some who say they now eschew the use of AS altogether, and prefer the result vs trying to cancel skating with AS.

It’s not a pod! The tonearm sits.on the same 65lb slate that houses the TT.

In the second paragraph, 5 lines from the bottom, "here", not "hear".  Hate when i do that.

In May we visited our son in Tokyo for a few weeks, and I bought a Viv Float tonearm direct from the manufacturer, who is in a suburb of Tokyo near Yokohama.  This was necessitated by the fact that all the Tokyo based dealers were out of stock.  One of those dealers suggested I contact the Viv factory directly, and I finally did so thanks to my son acting as interpreter.  Even Akimoto-san, the designer and owner of Viv, was out of stock, and I had to wait until July to receive my tonearm here in Bethesda, by post from Japan.  Despite the language barrier, I perceive that Akimoto-san is a very nice guy and of course, honorable. I am using the Viv on my highly modified Lenco turntable where it can sit on the slate plinth adjacent to the platter.  One issue with implementing this tonearm is that you need a minimum of 45mm clearance, which is to say that the base needs to sit 45mm below the surface of an LP, in order to achieve a level arm wand using any typical phono cartridge. (Obviously, this minimum mount distance from the platter could vary a bit if the cartridge body is unusually tall.)  With the cartridges I have thus far auditioned, using a 5mm thick Boston Audio Mat2 on the Lenco platter and shimming the cartridge by 3mm together do  the trick of achieving the desired VTA.  The Viv arm base is very substantial, weighing at least 2 lbs, so sitting on the surface of the slate which is physically connected to the platter bearing by bolts and a clamp, I am not concerned about inadequate coupling of the tonearm to the platter bearing. So far, I have auditioned the following cartridges: Dynavector 17D3, Ortofon MC7500, and lately the ZYX Universe (the original version).  The Viv provides female RCA jacks for output but the wiring permits a balanced connection if one wants that, because the outer barrel of the RCA jack is not connected to ground. There is a separate ground lug.  The ensemble is running into my modified Manley Steelhead which drives the built in amplifiers of my Beveridge 2SW speakers for all frequencies above 80Hz.  Below 80Hz, the signal goes via an external Dahlquist crossover to a Theshold Class A amplifier driving home built Transmission Line woofers.  I bought the "9HA" version of the tonearm, 9 inches arm wand and made of aluminum.  For a cost premium, there are CF versions of all the different lengths.  I decided to go with aluminum, because in the event I found the arm to be too lively (i.e., too resonant as noted by some reviewers in describing the alu versions), I could temper the resonance by using a CF headshell, or by using CF shims, or by putting some heat shrink on the arm wand. In practice, I started out with CF headshells but right now I am using the Viv (aluminum) headshell with a 3mm CF shim that I bought on line.

Here is where I could wax poetic about the sound of the 3 cartridges in this tonearm.  Suffice to say that each of the 3 cartridges sounds better in the Viv than it has in either of two other well regarded conventional overhung pivoted tonearms. The characteristic sound is "vivid", as the name suggests (dynamic contrasts are very well done, and I can hear why some thought that effect was partly due to resonance, tamed by a touch of CF), coherent (I detect absolutely no negative effect of the TAE at outer or inner grooves), and undistorted.  I think that individual instruments in large orchestral pieces are more easily appreciated. Sound stage is open and spacious.  Sense of depth is as good as I ever heard, if not better, and the Beveridge speakers are champions of depth.  I'm really hear to say that one ought to open one's mind to the idea that it is possible that minimizing TAE (which is the reason we ended up with spindle overhang and headshell offset angle) at the cost of increasing the skating force might not be the best approach or the only valid approach to the design of a pivoted tonearm. Try it; you might like it.