I also find it odd that the Triplanar is not mentioned, if for no other reason that with a casual glance at the Talea, you see the trademark VTA tower and tunable weight system of the Triplanar. Its kind of hard to miss.
The Triplanar uses a bearing that is harder than either of the arms in this discussion. When Herb was working with the bearings in the arm, he found that while many bearing worked well, in time the points tended to get flattened from very minor treatment of the arm. So he did his research and found the hardest bearings made. They are not a common bearing, and are made to order. Triplanar got investigated by the Department of Homeland Security, because they are using more of these bearings than Boeing is.
In short, just because it has had the various problems in an arm design worked out longer than the competition has is no reason to write it off! |
Dertonarm, And sorry - no, I do not think that something simply has the value that people put on it.
I still have the naive thinking, that the real contend -i.e.: the inherent quality ( in the very sense of the word ) of a product/something ultimately qualifies its value. Value comes out of declaration. I am pretty sure that 'inherent quality' is an assigned value also. Is this the idea that there can be 'quality' regardless of what people think? 'Quality' by itself has no meaning, and meaning is only ascribed by humans, so far... Not to put too fine a point on it, but my own efforts have been entirely to get as close to the original musical experience as possible. IOW, in service of the music only. Its cost me- for example I built our amps without feedback, because feedback violates a fundamental rule of human hearing. This limits the amps to speakers that are OK with that... if I was really going for 'high end', I would have had feedback so I could sell the amps to more customers. So I just drew a distinction between serving music vs 'high end'... Or did I miss something in your comment? |
However - a roman gladius, its blade made from the special alloy produced by a certain celtic tribe in the area of lake Chiemsee in southern Bavaria ( because the soil there was contaminated by millions of fragments from an exploded comet which exploded in the sky above their territory a few hundred years before ) had an inherent quality which by far exceeded (in all critical aspects of "performance" such as hardness, durability, weight etc.) all other swords of its time for 3 centuries and won the roman empire the pre-dominance in Europe. Not everyone thinks that Rome's dominance was a good thing. So- are you saying this is a good thing or a bad thing? It still seems like a matter of declaration... |
I still believe that true value in the sense of the word has nothing to do with declaration or point of view of people but with its inherent quality. This seems inherently contradictory. There is no 'objective' viewpoint to be had; we are all humans and assign value and create stories about 'quality' in an arbitrary fashion. Rome did not prevail because of a sword; it prevailed, and that's all there is. Once you assign reasons, you are making up stories. With regards to Frank's comments, The MP-1 has a phono gain of 66 db. The line section adds to that. I know of no cartridge that the preamp does not work with, it has a loading strip on the rear to accommodate any load needed. Frank's comments about compatibility are simply incorrect. When used with a LOMC, the volume control will be seen to have 2-db steps. The difference in gain Frank was referring to was the fact that the outboard phono section he produced for the event had a different gain structure. If the phono section was the tiniest bit brighter, you would have run into this problem no matter how many notches existed on the control, due to the way the ear detects sound pressure. Further, Stig's (Lyra) comments on this forum some months back bear repeating (I confirmed it the process of trying to build an accessory that could tell you what the right loading for a cartridge is): the simple fact of loading a LOMC cartridge has entirely to do with ultrasonic behavior of the preamp and little to do with the cartridge. IOW the value of the load is not critical **if the phono section is well-behaved when ultrasonic noise is injected into the preamp**. The bottom line is if you are used to hearing big differences with loading, what you are hearing is caused by the phono section being susceptible to ultrasonics, **not** a change in damping of the cartridge. |
Good Luck.
If you are not thinking, then you are present. This is not possible with thought; your thoughts are trying to convince you that they *are* you, and seek to place you in the past or the future; neither is a place where anything happened or will happen. Happening is only in the present.
So life is, as the Gladius is, as these tone arms are. We as humans attach the 'value' to such things, and the 'meaning' thereof. As a designer, one likes to think that the value and meaning is built into the design, but when that design makes its way into the world, like any fine art the values and meanings attached are rarely that of the origin. |
We use 12AT7s for phono gain. You can't get bandwidth with 12AX7s.
Installing the afore-mentioned values on the loading terminals of the preamp would have done the trick.
With higher impedance cartridges like this, the loading does become more of a damping issue, as higher impedance cartridges do ring much like transformers and have to be damped in a similar way.
With LOMC, the impedance is so low (50 ohms, often a lot less) that the artifacts of ringing are entirely ultrasonic, often well in excess of 100KHz. They can be sometimes quite surprising in amplitude, if a tuned circuit (depending on what resonant frequency that might be achieved with the inductance of the cartridge, capacitance of the cable, and aspects of the input of the preamp itself) results. If you think about this as RF being injected into the input of the preamp, it can be easier to understand. If the preamp has a problem with that, the loading resistor may become quite critical, as it interacts with the resultant tuned circuit.
We get around the noise issue by use of a differential balanced phono section (which was the first of its kind ever done), which employs very effect constant current sources. It can have as much as 12 db less noise than an equivalent single-ended phono circuit. |
One can
dispute his wording (inherent value of objects) but not
his physical inclination. The nature does not care about our feelings nor about our thinking. The arrogance of homo
sapince is self-deceit. Our 'mother náture' don't care about us. Yes. I think we are on the same page here- life does not care what we think of it ('Rome was successful due to a fabulous sword'), it simply is. When we make up stories about life and life does not agree, well, that is the source of all human suffering. So I maintain that Rome prevailed. I would think that it is because they *recognized* the value of that sword, but not due to the sword itself, as, IMO, Rome was successful out of its policy. But that is the reason I made up. Life says simply: 'Rome prevailed.' Actually, I was just holding Dertonearm's feet to the fire- I like to *think* that I have good taste for quality as well, but somewhere in the last decade or two I became aware that as a human I am remarkable fallible; that the perceptions of my senses can be misleading as can my beliefs. That does not stop me about my tasks, now days I am committed to but not so attached to the outcome thereof. So when Dertonearm is talking 'quality', **even though I seek the very same** (assuming that the value of 'good' is attached to that quality- I hate to buy junk) I find that the conversation can take on an absurd quality very quickly. Like me going on like this :) |
Now your questin:'what are you when you are not thinking?'
You deed not stated as your premisse: Cogito ergo sum.
To make you question managable for my way of,uh, seeing
I must rephrase your question. Say: in what state is your
brain when you are not thinking?
Well I assume that this is the case when I and my brain are
sleeping.There may be some dreaming activity but I dare not
to mention Freud and his Traumdeutung. The assumption is incorrect. Consciousness has nothing to do with thought; as soon as you achieve a state of consciousness without thought, it can be said that you are super-conscious: Present, in the now, in a state of Being. The idea of thought being the Being is incorrect- it comes out of the mind trying to convince you that it is you. It is not- it is a tool for you. This is the difference between philosophy and knowledge. 'Cognito ergo sum' is philosophy, a statement to explain behavior, misleading.. certainly not real. Knowing that your consciousness exists in a state of true Being when thought is silenced is actual knowledge. |
Nandric, I too have difficulties with Heidegger's philosophy, but mostly on the grounds that philosophy itself is never knowledge. Philosophy is/are merely reasons, and as such, entirely made up to justify a behavior.
IMO vision is what makes a thing like a great tonearm possible. It is hard to say what the source of the vision might be. But you see this all the time in great art, great technology, great accomplishment. A musician may have poor technique, but if he has vision it can take him places that his technique never could. If you see a great tonearm, it is the vision behind it that made it possible.
Vision and intention are the things that make for greatness. Philosophy is the thing that we make up along the way to explain ourselves; in the face of simply Being, philosophy vanishes, but vision and intention remain. |
Nandric, I hope one would not attempt to refute a literary work but simply enjoy it for what it is. We certainly do that with a fine wine :) Philosophy is much the same idea- it is not knowledge (although it can and does get applied to knowledge- for example my philosophy is to use differential circuits as much as I can), but can be amusing nevertheless along the way. As such, Bill Watterson http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/ (Calvin and Hobbes fame) does as well as the best I saw from my college days... |
Just from reading this description I can see that this book is a product of modern philosophy - it commits all the same errors. For one, the notion of something beyond reality (as perceived and understood by man's consciousness) with no evidence or argument supporting this notion, which implies that man's mind (reason) is impotent and we should blindly accept this "Being". And what does he mean when he states he wants to "transform consciousness"? Humans are entities of a specific nature - as with all entities the law of identity applies (Aristotle)to us - including our consciousness which operates by specific means (concepts) to understand reality. How is he going to "transform" that? Canam, I recommend you try reading it before you assume that this is about philosophy. There seems to be an underlying assumption in a number of posts here that the ability to silence the mind's endless chatter ('inner dialogue' as it is often known- if it is a dialogue, to whom is the mind conversing?) is somehow the same as being unable to perceive. Indeed, Dertonarm says: Well, we have seen a good many politicians - each side of the Atlantic - the past years who proved themselves "true experts" in the described process to silence any thought ( in themselves...). However - if it lead to any positive results for them or us, then I missed it...... I sometimes stood frozen in absolute amazement, but that wasn't really going hand-in-hand with any positive feeling.
Which might have been an attempt at humor; its only my opinion of course but most politicians to me seem merely thoughtless, not at all what I am talking about :) What I **am** talking about is the occasional moments when you might be driving, and come around a turn or the like, and are suddenly presented with a majestic vista of stunning beauty; or seeing for the first time a truly red tulip in spring; or hearing something of great beauty in a musical piece, wherein for an instant, the beauty of the experience is so stunning that the inner chatter of the mind shuts down, and you are allowed to be in the present, in the Now, without a worry of the future or the past. It might only be for an instant, a second or two, before the mind starts up again with something like 'wow- nice sunset!' or the like. But for a few seconds, the mind stopped its chatter (which is entirely different from the brain being somehow inactive BTW) and one is allowed to to experience the sublime. Although not the only one to do so by any means (I used his example because it is easy to find), Eckhart Tolle presents a simple technique to allow you to experience being in the Now a little more often. The science behind it is that if you can silence the inner dialogue (and after a while the mind seems to figure out that there is a benefit to this, so it gets easier to do), the brainwave frequency drops much like it does in meditation (hence your increased creative abilities, essential even with engineering), except that you can have your eyes open and be doing things, even be talking to a friend! This has nothing to do with philosophy or religion, BTW, nor is Mr. Tolle the only such proponent. The bottom line is though that it is simple to do and you might want to at least attempt it before dismissing it. |
I think ( a risky word in this context...;-) ...) that Descartes phenomenal statement - which marked the awakening of the spirit of humanism - is not philosophy. It is much more. It is the self-recognition of the human spirit. Beyond knowledge. Beyond religion. Not withstanding the pun, you have it exactly backwards. Thought is the product of the mind. But you are not your mind. Your mind is simply a tool, albeit one that tries to convince that you that it is you. When you experience this, perhaps it will be easier to understand. IOW, it is possible to silence the mind with a simple technique, and simply Be. So when you get that thought can be silenced and that consciousness remains, it is *then* that you experience the human spirit- yourself. This is not possible as long as the mind is not stilled. To say "when thought is silenced is actual knowledge" is simply nonsense. Canam, you and Dertonarm are on the same page here, but I would simply say that in order to know the truth of this, perhaps try it first. Eckhart Tolle has presented a simple method in his book 'The Power of Now'. It is true that there has been a lot of philosophy presented here. You will find though that behind any great design is usually a guiding principle, which might be a vision or a philosophy. I am simply pointing out that if you can still the mind, the creative powers awaken and are 10 times more powerful. If you are to make a better arm, it seems like this might be useful. |
Dgarretson, it might be helpful to look at how a record is cut. A worm drive advances the cutter across the record- so to play back, it seems as if a linear tracking device will be needed, although there are some interesting approaches that use radial arm systems, like the Thales arm.
You have the issue of warps and bass- this means, to prevent variation in tracking pressure, that the arm bearings be in the same plane as the vinyl. When the bearings are above the LP surface, the tracking pressure will decrease with bass or warps.
The azimuth must not change during playback either. A gimbaled bearing will work for this and may not be the only means.
A short pivot will not work, as it forces the bearings to be above the LP surface, and makes for audible speed variation as warps are negotiated.
Air bearings don't seem to work either, as it will be seen that the more air pressure is used, the better they work. There are mechanical bearings that have no 'slop' or play in the bearings; play at this point is critical as any (even microscopic) movement is interpreted as a signal by the transducer. You want the motion of the needle to be paramount, without editorial by other parts of the system.
Now it will be seen by some that my comments might appear inflammatory to some. But I am simply outlining what appears to be needed. The digression of opinion is likely based on philosophy rather than anything tangible. That is how wide open the tone arm arena still is. |
The Talea uses a counterweight system similar to the Triplanar- three weights (the last of which is threaded and very small for exacting adjustment).
I point this out because it is possible to have either arm set up in a way that does not favor the cartridge installed. This weight system allows you to adjust the effective mass of the system which is not possible with a single counterbalance weight.
So if the tracking weight is right, but the effective mass is not, the cartridge will not show its best! This is how you can get really divergent results using the same arm and cartridge. My own experience suggests that if the effective mass is also optimized, one will hear far less differences with the cartridges. |
Cousinbillyl, seems like most of your questions are answered but the loading. I think you will find the loading to be not that critical. With LOMC cartridges, the inductance of the cartridge and the capacitance of the cable can form a tuned radio frequency circuit. What the load is doing is reducing the 'Q' of the circuit- detuning it. It has to be right value to do this.
However, a lot has to do with the RF immunity of the phono preamp. So in general you will find that the more the preamp is upset by ultrasonic RF noise, the more critical the load becomes. With our stuff the big thing you hear is reduced noise in the background- not too much on the tonality side. This suggests that the phono stage does not care too much if RF is present (as happens with an unloaded cartridge) at its input.
Clear as mud?? -have a good weekend! |
Cousinbillyl, its always a good idea to give a cartridge a few hours of play to break in! 50-70s hours is common, only after that time would I play with tweaks. You don't want natural changes in the cartridge to create confusion. |
