Kuzma 4Points and Lyra carts

Dear @boothroyd :  The 103R is a low compliance cartridge and what you experienced with could be generated for that compliance and depends too of the tonearm quality in what is mounted and its alignment set up as its playing hours time.

I own some medium/high compliance cartridges ( MM/LOMC ) and comes to my memory the Fulton blue that's a medium complaince LOMC cartridge and never had that problem with 9" tonearms.

So, for me what you posted is not necessary a spherical stylus tip characteristic.

R.

Dear @karl_desch  : ""  I think it’s worth noting that some arms probably deal with vibrations and resonances better than other in the same effective mass range.  ""

Yes, sometimes better than other and sometimes just different.

You can analize the Reed 3P that's too a very good design and comes with removable headshell where its EM ( cocobolo or ebony ) is almost the same as the Kuzma 9.

That's an alternative you can thing about and where you will be safe too:

https://www.reed.lt/product/reed-3p/


R.

Dear @karl_desch  :  "  Will the higher effective mass of the 4point 11 work better with the Etna SL?


About resonance frequency the 9" mate well with Etna SL but the 11" goes out of the " theorical/ideal " resonance frequency range .

That does not necessary means that is a wrong mate the 11" but with some recordings or some kind of TT generated vibrations even coming from speakers could be some " trouble ". Maybe never will appear that " trouble ".

With the Soundsmith both tonearms mate well.

R.

Dear @herman  :  "   but as you know there is ultimately only one thing that matters... how does it sound? "

I agree with you and posted something similar in the last post.

Again what we like is what matters but some of us that analize those numbers that say a lot of things ( not the kind of sound we coukld have. ) can  discriminate/select in better way our decisions and the why's behind those decisions.

Anyway, you got my point: appreciated.

R.

Dear @herman  : No one can't argue almost nothing against an audiophile subjectivity and I respect a lot your opinion as the opinion of other gentlemans.

I have " thousands " of first hand experiences ( I could think similar to you. ) and longer tonearms always looks so fine against the shorter ones and along that many listening sessions could tell us the longer tonearms makes a better quality performances with any cartridge but through the years I learned that that " dream " is not totally true and for very good reasons ( not subjective ones. ).

Even that some people as fsmith does not like but SAT designer is rigth on this regards, please read carefully here:

https://swedishat.com/SAT%209%22%20vs%2012%22%20paper.pdf

Additional to all those in a longer tonearm its effective mass/inertia moment is higher too than in a shorter one and that mass goes from static to Dynamic mass during playback and the whole cartridge is " seen " that more heavy mass ( from counterweigth to headshell) in dettriment not only of the quality of sound but against the cartridge it self.

Now, the in theory advantage of lower tracking error  could be not a truly advantage against all those but by numbers not you not @karl_desch or any one else including me can't really be aware of it due to its very low differences after calculations.

Here using LÖfgren A alignment numbers says:

Average %distortion:  9" = 0.43%     11" = 0.34%

Max Error°               :  9" = 1.9          11" = 1.5

Max distortion% between null point:  9" = 0.64     11" = 0.51   


Groove after groove the distortion level is changing and from one groove to the next the differences are only 0.03%: no one but a bat can heard it so we can't be aware of it groove after groove no matters what. Nera the null points that differences of distortion goes down to 0.00...%

So from where comes that " subjectivity " advantages of the longer tonearms? from the higher developed distortions ( any kind. ) generated by the longer tonearms.

Yes, this is a different point of view but we have to stay conscious of what really is happening down there.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.