Looking for tonearm inspiration

He probably had a seizure. 

Raul, it is if we can not understand you. We mean no offense. We may even be in agreement on some issues but it is hard to tell. Look into using these translation devices!

billwojo, at least you are not trying to speak Spanish:)

Can anybody translate Raul's last post for me? Just the first paragraph.

I got the last paragraph. He is saying even if a tonearm and cartridge are set up correctly you still need a damping device.

OK Raul, Why do you still need a damping device in a tonearm and cartridge that are set up with a resonance frequency of 8 Hz? What exactly are you damping? What does the damping do? 
 

I'm right here Raul trying to decipher what you just wrote.

Lets see if I get this right. According to you, if a system's (including the room) bass performance is not correct the entire system will sound bad and if a tonearm is not damped bass performance will be poor. So, by extension you are saying that any system that does not have a damping mechanism in it's tonearm is going to have poor overall performance.

The tonearm and cartridge when playing a record are a mass or effective mass sitting on a spring (the cantilever's suspension) which has a specific spring rate (compliance). This mass is going to want to bounce at a certain frequency depending on the size of the mass and the stiffness of the spring. The larger the mass the lower the frequency it will bounce at. The stiffer the spring the higher that frequency will become. This is the resonance frequency. If you adjust the size of the mass and the stiffness of the spring so that the resonance frequency sits in a range were there is no information the tonearm cartridge system will not be excited to vibrate. We know from measurement that there is very little energy between 8 and 12 Hz on a record. Below that you have rumble and warps. Above and you have record noise and then bass. So if you adjust the mass and spring rate so that the system's resonance frequency is between 8 and 12 Hz it will never be excited to vibrate and the resonance will be a non issue. Using damping in this situation will do absolutely nothing as there is nothing to damp. In a situation where the resonance frequency is too high or too low and may get excited damping will raise the Q of the system and limit the number of oscillations the system will make when it gets excited. This is quite useful in very heavy arms particularly tangential trackers with very high horizontal masses. In a properly matched pivoted tonearm set up damping is totally unnecessary and may even be harmful. 

OK Raul, I do not think I can explain it any better than that. If other members find that I am in error please speak up. I you agree please let Raul know because he has a tendency toward disbelief.   
 

Raul, I think everyone understood what I meant except you. We do however agree that Mr Ikeda's designs are lacking in inspiration.
I'm afraid you have not left your stupidity yet. It is very much still with you.
Some additional damping is required. Uberwaltz, can you please get out the grape jelly?

If you were going to put something like an old  V15 you might need it. Cartridges that compliant are rare now a days. Perhaps the troughs ring.
I would take them off also. I just don't like miscellaneous junk hanging from my tone arm. Frank Schroder won't even put an arm rest on his arms. He thinks they sound bad. You just rest the arm on the lift. 

Right on Chakster. If a cartridge is properly matched to the tonearm damping is not required. It is just a messy proposition. The only time you really need it is with linear trackers that do not have a mechanized carriage Like the Kuzma Air line. There is no way you can match any cartridge to the high horizontal mass. If you do not want your cartridge bouncing from one side of the groove to the other damping is essential. 
Personally, you are better off with a pivoted arm. If you want a linear tracker check out the Schroder LT or the Reed 5T.

Anti skate should be in the vicinity of 10 % of the VTF. The most accurate way of measuring it is with a Wally Skater. https://www.wallyanalog.com/wallyskater The only problem with the Wally Skater is its price. A test record is much cheaper. 
I owned one of the first pair of Diva's produced. They were hands down Apogee's best speaker price considered. The Scintilla was a stop gap design with a ridiculously low impedance. The problem was you had to spend way more on amps to drive them than the speaker cost and regardless you were never going to get to Rock and Roll levels. I find it funny that a limited speaker such as the Scintilla could get the reputation it has. The Diva on the other hand was special. Flawed but special. After 6 years of playing with them I returned to ESLs where I will happily stay.
In part it was the flawed nature of their speakers that was in part responsible for their demise. Magnepan was very smart not to release a driver that was so easily damaged. You can still pop a Maggie tweeter but not near as easily as an Apogee tweeter not to mention the other ribbons are just as easily damaged.

Nice boat anchor Chakster. You'll need one of those Jap chisel monsters to go in it. Just for fun put an old V15 in it and see what happens:)

Ralph, Raul means well he is just hard to understand because of the language barrier. Next year he is going to come out with his own amplifier. Class R. It is obviously going to sound better than any other amp ever made. Since it runs on chicken pellets it will smell great too. 
Stereophile can't wait to smell a review. 

Really, I think you have a much larger fan club than Raul. You do not need to defend your position with us. The only used Atma-Spheres I ever see for sale are the little ones and I will bet you bacon for biscuits that there owners are moving up to larger ones. Sound Labs loves your amp with their speakers and that is enough for me:)

Rauliruegas, the SME V was a landmark tonearm for sure and there is a lot to recommend it. My only grip with it is the location of the counter weight. It is so low that if you draw a line from the center of the counter weights mass through the vertical bearing that line passes through the arm tube and goes above the head shell. Ideally that line should go through the center of mass of the cartridge. A little off one way or the other doesn't make much difference but this is way off. Consequently, the VTF is going to fluctuate over warped records and change with record thickness. If you have flat records, vacuum or a good reflex clamping system like SOTA sells it won't matter at all. The Vertical bearing is at the plane of the record so warp wow will be minimal. Anti skating decreases towards the center of the record as it should. It does have a dynamic VTF system which may counter act some of the issues with it's geometry.
Anyway, I almost bought an SME V 12 once. It was a great price but I did not have a turntable to put it on so I passed. 
If you want to look at a pivoted tonearm that is about as good as one can get check out the Schroder CB. The Reed 2G, all the 4 Point arms and the more expensive Origin Live arms are also excellent designs. 

Rauliruegas, I am sure the Saec is beautifully made. It is just a bad design by modern standards and if you know anything about tonearm geometry it is obvious just by looking at it.  I do not have to use it. I know exactly what it is going to do. It is a beautifully made piece of junk by modern standards. Like I said before there are any number of modern arms that will handily out perform it at considerably less expense. I would not take one even at $500.00. 
Your friend is entitled to his own opinion especially when it come to his own system. I have heard many $500,000 systems that sounded awful to me. It is just a race for who can spend the most money. I have heard $100,000 system that are hard to criticize. The owner knew what he was doing. 

Oh Raul, Atmasphere did answer your question. You just did not like the answer. He told you that the specifications of the Triplanar's bearings were not available to us as they are used in military gear and none of us have clearance for that information. It is a military secret. My brother does defense work and has that clearance. If you leak any of that information it is the end of your career and you could even wind up in jail!

Rauliruegas, what exactly does, "a BS of design." mean? I think there is a slight language barrier here. 
The Modern SAEC 4700 is a static balance arm whose vertical bearing is above the plane of the record. It has an archaic dangling weight for an anti skate devise and it weights a ton not to mention it costs 13 large.
There are tonearms at 1/2 the price that are superior in all ways.
The SME V is far superior as are the Origin Live Enterprise and the Triplanar not to mention any Schroder or Reed tonearm. For anti skating the SME uses a spring. The Triplanar and Origin Live arms use a lever and the Schroder and Reed arms use a magnetic system. The best arms are neutral balance and have their vertical bearing in the plane of the record. The Kuzma 4 point arms are also excellent arms. Much superior to his earlier efforts. A neutral balance arm will exert the same VTF over warps and different thicknesses of records. A Static balance are will not.
As you raise the record surface a static balance arm increases it's VTF as it tries to return to it's balance equilibrium point.

All that is nice rauliruegas but you can't get an SME without a turntable now so it is a mute issue. But having handled both arms the Triplanar does have better bearings and it is a more intelligent design than any SME arm. The vertical bearing is in the plane of the record and you can draw a line from the center of the cartridge through the vertical bearing right through the middle of the counter weight. It is a neutral balance arm while the SME is a static balance arm. Neutral balance is always better. The Schroder CB is another example of a neutral balance arm. Having the vertical bearing in the plane of the record greatly reduces warp wow.
Even if the Triplaner had inferior bearings to the SME it would still be the superior arm. besides old guys like Atmasphere an I have to stick together. Plus I'm hoping to get a deal on one of his amps some day:)

chilli42, leave all that other junk behind and get yourself a Schroder LT. If you can't afford that one I suggest the Schroder CB. Otherwise the Triplanar , 4 point and Reed arms are excellent followed by Origin Live arms. SME's are no longer available. Other arms are just iterations of the same old tired design.
rauliruegas, who singed your back side? I understood Atmasphere just fine. I did not under stand you. You need to get some Maalox and relax.