"oldskool" tonearms

Dear Anthony: Good luck on your Satin hunt. I owned the RS-A1 too, it had many interesting " things " ( like the headshell design ) but overall it is not a " great " one unipivot.

Btw, why your love for unipivots?

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Dear Michael: I owned the ET and Dennesen linear traking tonearms and I had the opportunity " to play " with the Air Tangent.

I really like this technology but I prefer the pivoted tonearm music presentation: solid and very well balanced, with the linear tonearms ( and least that was my experience ) the frequencies extremes sometimes where softed. Now, there is one characteristics where the linear tonearms really shine: soundstage, I don't know any pivot tonearm that can beat it.

Another reason is that the linear tonearms need to much " room " for set-up and it be dificult to install with other three tonearms in the same TT.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Pauly, I prefer the UP-4 to the RS-A1 for 2 main reasons. The UP-4 has better extension and a fuller midrange compared to the RS-A1, which is also very very fiddly to setup properly.

However and despite the RS-A1 not sounding as good as the UP-4, the special thing about the RS-A1 compared to other tonearms is that it can be situated (almost) anywhere on a turntable plinth, without the need to drill a hole for mounting. Mine is currently installed onto the plinth of my Garrard 401, together with an Audiocraft AC-4400 and a SME 3012 II. I just use some blutack to secure the base to the plinth.

Dear Raul,

Unipivots have a special place in my collection because of what they do to the midrange on vocals ... they seem to my ears to make the voices sound natural, open and slightly more emphasised, compared to other designs, at the expense of some dynamics or extension.

Kind regards,

Anthony

Dear Raul,

Thanks for the reply. I have one more question for you. I have a chance to pick up a Micro Max 237 with 2 different kind of wards. I wonder how much difference (performance wise) is there between the 237 and 282. Should I wait for a 282 or should I go for the 237 instead?

Thanks in advance.

Michael

Raul,

I only own one vintage arm (HK/Rabco ST-8, which hardly qualifies as high performance) so I didn't read this thread until today.

Just wanted to thank you (and Thom too) for a really valuable and informative post. Great info. Also excellent reasoning about "why" vintage Japanese arm makers worked so hard to excel. Competition brings the best ideas to the top.

Regards,
Doug