Gimbal vs unipivot tonearms

The devil's in the details.

Ginmal arms or arms with two axis bearings if done correctly are superior.
They are also more expensive to manufacture. Unipivot arms are easy and inexpensive to make They are a little more difficult to handle as they wobble when you pick them up. They are more difficult to keep in adjustment and are more finicky to set up. They tend to have more bloated less detailed bass. The two exceptions to this are the Graham arm which is stabilized by opposing magnets and the Basis arms which are really not unipivots they are bipivot arms. There is a secondary bearing that fixes the torsional axis.
Tonearm wobbling and torsional instability are very bad issues in a tonearm as they can adversely affect the cartridges performance. 
I will never own another unipivot arm.  There are so many excellent arms available with wonderful bearing designs at reasonable prices. But, you can always make a unipivot cheaper if that is what you are after.

Dont forget the Well-Tempered Labs tonearm. I believe it is a quasi unipivot with much more control and little to no wobble. And yes, it has terrific sonics. Imo.

In my opinion either can be excellent.  In general gimbal is more expensive to make to achieve the same performance as an equivalent performing unipivot.  Also, most people find gimbal to be more comfortable to use, whereas there is more of a learning curve with a unipivot.  I think the true record nut should have at least one of each.  ;-)

@mijostyn - that's what I thought, but why have I seen them on some pretty expensive ($10K+) VPI tables?

@mr_m - I've heard good things about WTL arms - I guess quasi unipivot is the key - whatever that means.

mijostyn

Ginmal arms or arms with two axis bearings if done correctly are superior.

That's opinion stated as fact, even though Mijostyn and I do share rather a distaste for unipivot arms. I've always found it creepy the way they wobble about, which seems to me the very last thing anyone would want a pickup arm to do. But that's just a prejudice. I've heard some extraordinary sounds from unipivot arms, including a 12-inch VPI on an HRX at Peter Lederman's Soundsmith.

As usual, it's all about the implementation, not the technology itself.

WTL implementation is unique and sounds great.

It can be both, read about this tonearm.

"Another Reed 3Ps innovation is its bearing system. Although tonearm bearing system can be considered as gimbal, it acts like unipivot one. However, major difference from unipivot system is that instead of a single pivot three pivots and both vertical and horizontal axis’ magnetic stabilizers are used. Such bearing system is as rigid as gimbal, but its friction coefficient is as low as in unipivot." 

sokogear, there is no accounting for taste. There have been some pretty fancy and expensive unipivot arms. To my knowledge only the Graham as remained a true unipivot and managed to control the torsional stability problem. It is very expensive and there are many who think it is the best arm out there. The one I have played with dates back before  magnetic stabilization and it suffered all of the typical unipivot problems. Basis added a second bearing. 
@cleeds, sorry about my mis-typing of gimbal. Proper well designed 2 axis arms are better and that is a fact. Why do you think the manufacturers of two very fine arms went through so much trouble to stabilize the third axis? Ask Mark Dohmann or Frank Schroder that question and they will give you the very same answer.
 IMHO the VPI tonearm is garbage which is not to say it can't sound ok under the right circumstances. Originally it even had no anti skating device. My guess is the designer could not figure out how to add one so he made up this story about how it sounded better without it. I am not kidding either. 
Peter Ledermann is entitled, like the rest of us to make an occasional mistake. Because he finally associated with  the right tonearm designer I will forgive him that mistake, not that he really cares. But I did buy one of his more expensive cartridges. Can't wait to hear it. 

@chakster , The Reed 3P is not a unipivot arm and certainly does not act like one. It is very creative but IMHO the 2G is the Reed arm to go for.
I was considering it but in the end I went for the Schroder CB. 

The quote I posted above is what Reed designer explained about his bearing system. I have my Reed 3p since 2013, you are late. 

Is it just me who is marvelling at Mijostyn‘s certainties in life?;  he is again spouting generalities from insufficient data. In particular I‘d like to challenge him with a good Mørch or Hadcock design with a suitable cartride (e.g. Musicmaker, top Grado) to substantiate his claim. The resonance frequencies of unipivots are very different from heavy gimballed arms and hence mounting say a Miyabe or EMT Tondose won‘t get you very far. Conversely arguing that the liveliness and openness of a Unipivot have no attractiveness only supports his preconceived views of the world.

As usual, it's all about the implementation, not the technology itself.

Correct: The Devil's in the details.

case in point: I run a Dynavector DV 507MK2 with a Zyx Universe and a Mørch UP4 with a Scheu MC Analogue: on rock music, the Mørch is clearly preferred whereas the Dynavector on Classic and Jazz is miles ahead

like various different technologies (class a ab d amplification, planar vs dynamic driver speakers and so on) it is all about the quality and skill and care in implementation of the final product that determines how well it ultimately performs

Exactly. Tone arms are like everything else all down to how well an innumerable list of details is executed. Really good tone arms can be made from all sorts of different designs. There are examples of terrific arms made using wood, carbon fiber, aluminum alloy, pivoted, linear tracking, short arm, long arm, on and on. And on.   

The most useful thing you can learn sokogear is if you can pick up a sense of how to judge the value of all these different approaches. As for me, the one thing I have learned over the years is the fewer connections the better. So of all the different tone arm design approaches the one I care the most about is that the phono leads be hard wired. I will consider all kinds of arms but never again one that I also have to buy a phono interconnect for.  

You can take that however you like but all it means to me is all these other things people go on about- mass, compliance, length, etc, etc- they can all be done any which way and still sound good. But if at the end of the day you add all those extra connections you wind up shooting yourself in the foot.

@millercarbon, it sounds like you have had some issues with tonearm cables and headshell connections in the past. If all of your connection points are clean and free of oxidation than there really isn't much to be gained by wiring direct. Check a good setup with an ohm meter for resistance and compare to direct wired, should be zero difference. If you heard a difference after converting an arm to direct wiring than you had a problem!
Plus, I hate tonearms with non detachable headshells, makes swapping carts a royal pain. The better tonearms like the Victors and Micro Seiki's use a clamping type collet that is much superior to the type that just draws it in against a rubber washer.

BillWojo

The Thorens td203 with unipivot arm is a steal.

No issues, billwojo. Just experienced enough to know every connection is a discontinuity, and a weakness. In fact if you read my post again it is about connections.

As for me, the one thing I have learned over the years is the fewer connections the better.

Tone arms happen to be the example we are talking about, but there’s a reason I worded it the way I did: the fewer the connections the better applies to everything.

There is simply no getting around it. Now at this point I could say it sounds like you have had some issues with sound quality getting in the way of convenience. But I won’t.

a true zealot would get out the soldering iron…if that wasn’t an….inconvenience….

Enid would be proud and thirty years ahead….still

antigrunge25"Is it just me who is marvelling at Mijostyn‘s certainties in life?;  he is again spouting generalities from insufficient data."

I and others have pointed out that some contributors here have a "faith-based" approach to audio they do not believe in the science but in how they feel about things and they have a list of "beliefs" from which they do not bend, compromise, or deviate and of course they come here to convert the unbelievers to they're beliefs so it is easy to have all the answers!

a quick find

https://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/armdesign_e.html

it's gravity and the methods of resisting/using it.

Unipivot: My SME, 3009, very old design, still highly respected: the design is obvious, the adjustments results perfectly visible, and they hold their positions. anti-skate pure gravity. Long ago the rubber isolation sleeve needed replacement, they send me parts and instructions, fixed!

Gimbal: current blackbird 12.5" arm. Less fuss, Sounds great, but, you have to trust the parts and machining of the OEM, you cannot 'see' it's perfect.

Antigrunge, experience is the best teacher and yes, sometimes things really are that simple... except for the simple minded. 

Clearthink, you are a riot. It is physics and science that I rely on. You on the other hand seem to prefer mythology. You have to put the computer games down for a while and visit reality. 

Elliott, the SME 3009 is in no way shape or form a unipivot arm. It has ball races for the horizontal axis and a knife edge bearing for the vertical axis. 

@chakster  The 3P is a fine tonearm and Its azimuth on the fly feature is very creative, I just prefer the 2G. My reasoning is the 2G's vertical bearing is down at record level and it is a neutral balance arm. So from a technical standpoint it is a better design. Is it going to sound better? Not if your records are flat or close to flat. Is the Azimuth on the fly feature worth sacrificing optimum bearing geometry? I guess that is a personal choice. 

Dear friends: I'm with @mijostyn conclusion in this specific regards.

I owned several unipivots and I still have one from Grace and what for me is the best unipivot: Satin and I think that I still have one from Stax ( I think is unipivot. ). I owned Moerch, Audiocraft and other, not any more.

I have to say that under specific and controled circumstances  Unipivots could sound pretty decent.

Normally I don't recomend to any audiophile that can goes with unipivot tonearms.

The real problem with unipivots is not only what we can " see " but what we can't " see " and that's happening at microscopic land down in the cartridge/tonearm grooves tracking where the stylus tip it's figth really hard against the grooves thatneeds to track and where in motion that stylus tip is disturbed for very strong developed forces in almost all directions along all the LP imperfections.
To achieve a decent job down there that stylus tip needs stability, the kind of stability a gimball tonearm can gives to it and that an unipivot can't.

Normally the LP grooves are recorded at different velocities depening of the score and in the high velocity grooves the stylus tip is literally jumping ( sometimes we listen that distortion level and sometimes we don't but exist. ) an unipivot only makes things worst.
Gimball tonearm permits to avoid that " behavior "? certainly not but helps in better way to that cartridge stylus tip to track in way better way and this is very important when we listen the reproduced sound by that cartridge.

Someone measured what happens down there and its differences between using a gimball tonearm against an unipivot? not that I know about.


The kind of question like in this thread in reallity it's open to each one way of thinking.

My experiences in " hundreds " of systems tells me gimball is the road to go " safety ".


Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

@rauliruegas , you can't possibly agree with me! That will make you a marked man for sure. Everyone will think you are an arrogant SO who thinks he knows everything. You sure you want to do this?

No really, thanx for the support. Geniuses think alike:-)

Sounds like for most people, gimbal is the way to go, which is probably why the most practical company, Rega, uses that design exclusively for the best value in tonearms.

I never understood the appeal of the hard to handle, wobbly unipivot, but for some people it can sound better and is worth the trouble I guess. 

Like everything else in this hobby, it's a matter of what you're willing to do or spend to get the last couple % of improvement you perceive.  

A couple contributors here have written unipivot arms off, and I have also. Although my dream table is an SME, they don't mention gimbal or unipivot in their Series V arm description. I guess it is a modified unipivot?

Btw, this is the " down there " I’m talking about:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYE67fVny4c&list=RDCMUCMdOWi6nBZJ3Q0tHNQIOUVA&start_radio=1&rv=mYE67fVny4c&t=0

Don't go directly from the link but paste the link and then google it.

R.

Classic SME tonearms used a "knife-edge" bearing, which is definitely different from a unipivot but does allow for some "chatter".  Mijostyn mentioned this in responding to Elliot's erroneous suggestion that his older SME tonearm was a unipivot.  As I understand it, modern SME tonearms (like the IV and the V, maybe) have either done away with the knife-edge principle or have modified it to make it more stable, similar in philosophy to what Graham and Kuzma have done to stabilize the pivot bearing on tonearms that started out as unipivots.  I own a RS Labs RS-A1 tonearm that is a very crude unipivot, and 7 other tonearms that are gimbal type. Also, I used to own the British tonearm that used a mercury bath to establish electrical continuity between the arm wand and the base; I can't recall the brand name, but I am guessing Keith Monks.  With all its faults (and the danger of mercury exposure), that tonearm had a kind of airy quality that was pleasing.  So too does the RS Labs, which performs way above its very oddball design. However, I confess it is not in use at this time.

Dear @sokogear : "  they don't mention gimbal or unipivot in their Series V arm description.  ""

I think you are an analog newcomer .

This is the Agon ANALOG forum and other than the newcomers almost all are experienced hobbyst that know SME tonearm are not unipivot designs .

SME knows that's not need it to put in the tonearm description that's non unipivot design.

R.

@rauliruegas -  they could have said gimbal....

Both can be done well it is not going to make or break the table but what it more important is how the table as a whole sounds with the entire phono system cartridge, phono stage, and preamplifier, and amplifier involved on complex music. That is when you have found your correct analog rig.

I lived with both gimballed and unipivot.  Own very good VPI JMW-12 arm, two arm tubes.  They are quite difficult to get "just right."  And I still found the sound a bit lacking.  The arm is on a VPI Aries Extended table.  No particular difference between the arm tubes.

Just for fun, I built an experimental table from early VPI TNT parts (platter, spindle, bearing, clamp, motor) and a Jelco TK-850L tonearm.  Paid attention to the details.  Using the same cartridge (Soundsmith rebuilt Clavis D.C), the difference was dramatic.  Better performance in every aspect of performance.  Setup was a breeze.  Thought it might be an anomaly, so I picked out a cartridge from "the drawer" (AT OC9/II). Same results.  

I can't say for sure it was ONLY the arm, but the performance with the table using the Jelco was  much better, particularly in bass control and depth, soundstage, image and subtle instrument nuance.   Mids and treble were very natural compared to the slightly etched JMW-12.  

I have subsequently migrated to a Lyra Skala on the home built table and Jelco arm,  There is no reason to consider an upgrade nor any performance deficiency I can detect.   

I might add that different arms behave differently.  Not all gimballed arms will be as good as the latest (last) Jelco, probable some better.  The JMW-12 arm is an early VPI design, much improved over the years but still better than many.

At the end of the day a tonearm and cartridge in combination is ideally a pure vibration receiver. Every movement of the cantilever caused by its travel through the grooves is ideally converted to electrical signal unimpeded by the tonearm or any limitations of the cartridge. What happens when a cantilever is pushed laterally in one direction and another only damped by the underhung counterbalances employed by a typical unipivot? The answer is simple-vibrations are no longer being received intact and instead are compromised. And the grooves in which bass sounds are embedded cause the most lateral travel and are the most compromised. But then everything is likely compromised more than they have to be. The VPI unipivot design was very poor. So why be surprised that VPI is now slowly but surely converting to gimbal designs?

@rauliruegas , that is an insane video! What a great set up. He jury rigged the whole thing.
 It was not a unipivot arm but it was very interesting to see the torsional deflection when he skipped grooves.

Darn, I thought I was the only one who thought the VPI arm was trash.
fsonicsmith, you are stating opinion as fact. You can't do that because it freaks out a lot of insecure people. Don't do it again;-)

I know VPI is now pushing gimbal arms, but they are WAY overpriced, and they are made on a 3D printer - I guess out or some kind of plastic, and I saw in a previous discussion that they actually bend sometimes during shipping if it gets hot, and they tell their customers to use a hair dryer to bend them back - I kid you not. They also say they'll replace them if you want. $4K to boot!

The unipivots that bounce around are definitely a PITA to use, set up, you name it. I hear they make nice tables though.....and they started out making bases for Denon tables.

In fairness to VPI, I think they long ago fixed the problem with warping of their 3-D tonearm due to heat. And the uniform 3-D structure is touted as an advantage, not a cheap shortcut as you imply.

Could be (I wonder what material can go through a printer not subject to heat), but $4K is quite expensive compared to other options. Bottom line - if unipivot was the future, they wouldn't be going in another completely different direction.

You would think that 3D printing would be less expensive as there is very little labor involved. I think the other physical properties of the material they are using would be most important such a density, stiffness, resonance properties, etc. Anything can be damaged by heat if you crank up the temp enough. At any rate using a gimbal set up is a step in the right direction even if it is a plain Jane design. Tri-Planar, Schroder , Reed and Kuzma have all come up with beautiful and novel bearing topography. 

Rega is IMHO best bang for the buck 

      I've been using a Magnepan Unitrac I, since 1981.

      A very low effective mass unipivot, that I've always used with fairly high-compliance carts.  (ie: two Denon 103d's, Dynavector 17D3, Soundsmith Aida)

       It's my opinion: Physics would dictate, with a lower compliance cart, the stiffer suspension would tend to cause vibration migration, up the lightweight arm tube and resultant chatter in the unipivot.

                                           The thought makes my teeth hurt.

        Can't help but wonder, how many may have tried that and blamed the design?

Mijo, As I recall, the early 3D tonearms from VPI were warping at temperatures where a $4K tonearm, or any tonearm, should not warp.  Like temps reached during shipment or on a very warm day in a non-air conditioned environment.  But they did fix the problem, so far as I know.

@lewm , that is pretty bad. Hopefully, they replaced all of them. It is all right to make a mistake. It is what you do about it that counts. 

sokogear, I agree, Rega arms are a great value. Origin Live arms are better but a lot more expensive when you get up to the good ones in their line. At the bottom I do not think they are any better than the Regas.

@rodman99999 , I think you are right. If you have a unipivot it is best to stick to highly compliant cartridges. I also think you would be amazed at the improvement in your bass if you got yourself a new arm. If you are after better sound it always helps if you can identify problems with easy fixes:-)

@mijostyn-    I've never had a problem getting excellent Bass with my chosen carts.

       Always have tried to match them correctly (compliance/effective mass, within reason), which, I realize, some think is bunk.

        In my mind: a high compliance cart, in some of the newer, higher mass arms, would create other problems.    ie: exaggerated cone motion, when trying to ride record warp, possibly: early compliance collapse and excessive stylus wear?

        Anyway: I've always been a Pipe Organ-phile, Bass lover and got acquainted with the sound of, "live", way before ever owning a system (Elementary School music classes, etc).      Well- there was the turntable and Elvis 45's, at around the age of 12, but...

       Two of my all-time favorite vinyls are the Crystal Clear, Direct to Disc, of Virgil Fox (The Fox Touch, Vol I) and MFSL, Dark Side of the Moon.

        Toccata and Fugue in D minor and the heartbeats (not to mention the rest of that disc), both are mesmerizing, when reproduced correctly.

                             Thanks for the suggestion, though!

Nothing like a big organ in a big space. The Royal Albert Hall comes to mind. When the 32 footers light up it is like the hand of god shaking you. Your vision blurs! Many of the largest organs in the world are here in the states. There is one in Rode Island and another in Philiderphia. West Point has a big one. 
I have not played an organ piece in a while and I have some great recordings. Unfortunately I still do not have a turntable and none of my organ records are digital files, all vinyl. 
You have to trust me on this one rodman99999, your bass can be even better!

Still waiting for your Cosmos?

IME all designs have their issues. The above mentioned Well Tempered ( which I own and very much like) has an issue with its adjustability and its front/back stability (although this has not proven to be a sonic detriment that I can hear). The unipivot and the gimbal have their pluses and minuses. I would think that a gimbal, if done well, would have superior stability to a uni pivot, all else being equal. Perhaps we should include an air-bearing design here as well....maybe best of all worlds?