Questions Regarding Installing a Wheaton Triplanar On A SOTA Cosmos

@neonknight 

Shame it isn't a 9 incher. You could put it on the Cosmos and the Tri Planar on the Scheu or better yet a Schroder LT.  I would sell the 11" CB the SME and the TriPlanar (it has too many parts anyway), get a 9" CB for the Cosmos and an LT for the Scheu. 

@neonknight The Tri Planar will not fit on a Cosmos, not even close. The two best arms that will fit are the Kuzma 4 Point 9 and my personal favorite, the Schroder CB. The CB is way more sophisticated than it looks which is deceptively simple. Peter Ledermann is a huge Schroder supporter. 

@pindac I can not argue about Ortofon, The MC Diamond is a great cartridge and I expect the Verismo does not sound much different. They are very low output and require a very quiet phono stage. Ortofon has a presence in the market that no other company can match. Having said this, I have to say that I am pleasantly pleased with the Soundsmith cartridges I have owned in terms of quality, performance and support. The Hyperion MR is easily up there in performance with the Lyra Atlas SL and the MC Diamond. The Stylus on the Hyperion MR is a real piece of work. You can see it here 

@pindac I think good platters can be made of many different materials. Of greater importance is the quality of the bearing and the interface between the record and the platter. To pass energy to the platter efficiently the mat has to have the same mechanical impedance as vinyl and the record has to be glued to the mat along it's entire playing surface and the mat glued to the platter. In this way the platter captures the opposing forces created by the stylus bouncing around with the groove. With a good cartridge and arm there should be no, or almost no needle talk. This is one of the hallmarks of a great record playing system. If you hear needle talk with your ear one foot away from the stylus tracking the record you have work to do. I have never listened to a turntable that I could not hear needle talk with an ear 4" from the stylus tracking the record. It should however be very faint.

@neonknight 

Frank Schroder is a watch maker. All the adjustments on are simple and very effective. You have to have a light touch with everything. Each cartridge gets a mounting plate which is marked for location with a very sharp awl. With the scale on the side of the VTA post and my marked mounting plates I just have to worry about VTA and anti skate. It takes me maybe ten minutes to change cartridges. The first set up of any cartridge is always a bit tedious, but I also view the stylus under high magnification and I will snap lines on all the right angles and make sure they are in tolerance. Here are some pictures. 

@lewm I can only make rules for myself. No one else has to listen. Simple test. Turn off all the fans and the refrigerator and put on the forth movement of Beethoven's 9th. If you hear needle talk from one foot out you need to change something to do with your turntable. You'll have to figure it out:-)

@pindac see my note to Lewm above. I want you to turn the gain on your microphone preamp up all the way and make a recording of the needle talk of each mat doing the 9th and we'll figure out which one is best.

@neonknight VTF and antiskate not VTA and antiskate. My mistake. 

@pindac That's it! You are an oddball. Glad you figured that out:-) I was getting worried. 

@tomic601 The only person more arrogant than you is me:-)

The lyra has less needle talk because it has a very small stylus and boron cantilever. It puts less reactive energy into the record. It also has a very lightweight stylus mounting system. If you look at the pictures in the link above you can see it easily. The end of the cantilever is forked and the stylus sits in the interspace between the two prongs. My Sonic Lab uses the same supplier. The MC Diamond and the Soundsmith Hyperion, due to the nature of their cantilevers, have the stylus held on to the end of the cantilever with a big glob of cement.  

One of the reasons I like vacuum clamping and the Sota is the vacuum clamping effects on record resonance along with the engineering and construction of the Mat and platter. The other advantage is a flat record and pitch stability. 

@lewm It is not my model. It is my test. Freude schoner gotterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feurertruncken, Himmlischer dein Heiligtum:-)

@neonknight ​​@atmasphere ​​@lewm , I have scoped it out,  The problem is the dropped counter weight. It runs into the back of the plinth. Yes it will fit. If you cut the back of the plinth away at the right rear corner behind the tonearm well. You would have to put the cartridge on stilts to get the arm up high enough and you would lose the right rear dustcover hinge. 

Lew, the record imparts the energy to the stylus which is suspended. Everything below the resonance frequency is passed to the tonearm, everything above the resonance frequency moves the stylus relative to the arm and the reactive forces must be dissipated by the record which also has a resonance frequency depending on the record's thickness and how firmly it is held down. At frequencies higher than the resonance frequency the record sings like the diaphragm in an old Victrola which is what you are hearing which is high treble. If the record is fixed and can not move across it's entire surface that energy is dissipated by the much heavier platter and you hear nothing. Larger, heavier, stylus/cantilever combination put more energy back into the record and the needle talk is louder.