Discuss The Viv Lab Rigid Arm

Viv Labs accept the overhang is incorrect and there will be more distortion.  But they claim that other beneficial factors outweigh the effect of this disadvantage.

First that there is less resonance; but this does not seem to arise from the incorrect effective length; rather from the fact the arm base is not fixed to the turntable.

Second they claim there is benefit from reducing required anti-skating force.  Surely the best way of achieving this is a parallel tracking design (eliminates it).

My take on all this is the company is being different for the sake of being different.  They believe that by distinguishing themselves from all the other pivoted arm manufacturers they will garner more sales than they could be competing directly; that although their science is questionable (to say the least) enough buyers will ignore this..

This doesn't make the design right or better.  We will not be able to reach consensus because there will be those who think it sounds better and those who think it sounds worse.  This is the central problem of uncontrolled listening evaluations.

@lewm     Have you ever read a negative review of ANYTHING?  Most publications rely on advertising revenue.  If an item doesn't cut it on review, it simply doesn't get published.  By the way, if you re-read my post you will see I am not bad-mouthing this product.  All I am saying is that like nearly all components, some will like the sound and some won't.

@atmasphere   I agree with your endorsement of the usual criterion that there must be a tightly engineered connection between platter and stylus.  I think the issue with the Viv is not the freestanding base - it weighs 2kg and if the underside is of a suitable material that does not slip, it is not going to move around on the top-plate of the turntable.  I think the slop problem arises because the liquid pivot allows too much movement.  Just a few microns will allow the stylus to change location relative to the platter and read signals that are not imparted by the groove.  I sometimes wonder whether conventional gimbal bearings are really good enough to give zero slop.

@atmasphere    The hardness of the metal in the bearing is not the only issue.  The fineness of the machining is fundamental.

Another one I have thought about is my Simon Yorke Aeroarm.  This is a parallel tracking design, very lightweight with a distance from pivot centre to stylus of about 3 inches.  The arm has a round aperture sliding along a steel bar separated by an air bearing.  The clearance of the air bearing is 5mu centimetres.  The air pressure is 1.4 bar, held steady by a hospital grade compressor and control valving.  I have wondered what movement this might allow (if any) and noted such is likely to be in line with the arm and therefore the groove so not affecting azimuth.  I have never heard distortion of any kind on this rig which is my forever player and sounds simply wonderful with low-mass cartridges.

@mijostyn   The tracking error of the Viv varies as the effective length chosen. I f I wanted the Viv I would instinctively go for the 9 inch version, although quite a number of commentators have said they prefer the 7 inch (6 inch anyone?).  But whichever you choose I rather doubt the tracking error would be as gross as the 5 degrees you postulate.  Nevertheless I am curious that a quite a number of listeners say they cannot hear the resultant distortion on the 7 inch Viv.  I think it would be interesting to play sine waves on that and a conventional 9 inch arm using a line contact or similarly radical stylus and see if there is audible distortion.  It may be easier to perceive it on a steady state signal than with music.

@mijostyn   Warped records are a menace.  I have very few as I have rejected them unless the programme is very desirable and the disc very rare.  But in fact the Aeroarm plays severely warped records better than bigger and heavier arms.  Typically a bad warp throws the pickup into the air, particularly on 45 or 78 rpm.  Because its moving mass is around a quarter of a light 9 inch arm and the moment of inertia much less because the effective length is only one third, every warped record I have stays in contact with the record.  I concede it doesn't sound very nice, but it does keep playing!  Not really a virtue I am inclined to crow about.

As to carrying a couch upstairs, indeed.  Although that is much less of a strain than a heavy large speaker, such as my ML CLX Anniversaries that I recently had re-furbished and where at 72 years of age I had to help the carrier at the low end; we had one corner each.  The guy at the high end had a much easier time.  There was no room on the stair to fit more than two at the bottom.

@gzm 

" This seems advantageous to me because the largest source of vibrations is probably my turntable itself since it contains a heavy spinning platter as well as a motor."

Keeping the armbase off the turntable won't solve your perceived problems.  The stylus will pick up all the vibration of which you speak.  I'm not well up on Lenco, but my father had one and it was idler wheel driven - do they have new models, are they still trading?  Anyhow, if your turntable is really this bad, you need to upgrade.

@mijostyn     You mention the unnecessary obsession with VTA.  I agree with you.  You guess the error from playing a 130gm LP on a setting for 200gm at 'a few minutes maybe'.  I have done the calculation, assuming a 9 inch arm and a 1mm thickness difference (I haven't measured, but it's no more than that).  The answer is 1.8 minutes, so even less than your guess.  That cannot be heard.

My Simon Yorke Aeroarm has a dial for adjusting arm height on the fly.  There is a big stiff round knob.  I could measure the angular turn for say 0.1mm of change, mark a reference point adjacent to the knob, and set absolutely for each disc, having measured the thickness in the playing area with a caliper (carefully!) and written that dimension on the inner sleeve.

But I don't.  If Michael Fremer still used Simon Yorke equipment he would surely do it, and have a very nice record player as well.

@mijostyn 

You are quite correct that many people including a lot here allow their brains to fool them about what they are hearing.  That is of course because their brains are far more complex than mere hearing machines and do not accurately report the sound they are listening to.

This is why I took the handle CLEARTHINKER in part in the hope of explaining this to those people.

I think I am pleased not quite to be a true audiophile within your definition.  I changed my pre-amp and phono amp in 2020 and I sometimes buy a new cartridge (usually high-end Ortofon if something interesting is announced - must be flea-weight mass for the ultra lightweight Aeroarm).  But my system is pretty much in a steady state now and I love it the way it is.  Anyway, Clearthinker points out that technological changes are not always sound quality advances.

@boothroyd 

True.  Many arms are not dynamically stable.  But surely a majority of arms are gimbal mounted in vertical and horizontal planes and so will not permit significant movement in those planes.

@pindac 

I am unconcerned whether or not people wish to refer to me as an audiophile.

And the cart is only a weak link if it is assembled carelessly.  Which often occurs.

@dogberry 

@mijostyn did not say to 'ignore what our ears hear'.  He said (correctly) that our brains are not merely listening machines.  They are extremely sophisticated machines that process the raw sound that our ears hear with all sorts of other inputs like emotion and memory and psychological state.  We are unreliable at listening to a musical programme and perceiving it as it is.  If we think that what we perceive is exactly what our speakers put out then we are fooling ourselves.  This has nothing whatsoever to do with whether one is an 'audiophile' or not, whatever may be the meaning of that term (it is certainly not agreed).  The brain works for all of us in the same way as we are one species.  There are no 'golden ears' that can eliminate all those other inputs than the sound that comes from the speakers.

If you wish to set up a cartridge incorrectly to produce distortions that after processing in your brain you like, that is your prerogative.  But don't imagine that every time you listen you will perceive the same sound.  You may of course think that you do.