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Chak, I’m surprised the 3P is so light. My 10.5 inch 2A in red cedar is at least 12g. I never use any FR headshell in the 64S. Much of the mass of the 64S is due to the OEM headshell. I tend to use a CF headshell that weighs about 9 g. But your point is well taken if the 3P is as light as you say. And both of us are violating the golden rule when we pair these tonearms with high compliance cartridges.
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12-inch tonearm made of cocobolo must have very high effective mass. Fine for low compliance cartridges. Not so fine for high compliance ones. There is no single best length or best material for a tonearm. |
Dear Mijo, You wrote, "Even a cheap modern turntable transfers very little energy to the
surrounding environment. A good turntable with a good record hold down
system that dampens the record with a stiff multi bearing arm set up
correctly will transfer virtually nothing."
Where did I say that "turntables" transfer energy into the "environment"? What I inferred was that cartridges are microphonic; they all give off some audible noises as they decode the musical signal. Now it's my turn to be incredulous, if you say you've never heard such a phenomenon. But here is where I will confess to being guilty of a common audiophile sin: To me, that sound energy coming directly from cartridges is obvious, and to me it has always been obvious that dust covers add a coloration that I do not like. So, I put these two facts together and ascribed causality. I hate when others do that, so I plead mea culpa for having done it in this case. I've never proven that the coloration imparted by dust covers is per se due to cartridge microphony. Suffice to say that for me dust covers add a coloration that MIGHT be due to trapping the acoustic energy put out by a cartridge during play. Thus I never ever use a dust cover. I think you would find that most serious vinylistas don't use them either. I wonder how many others on this thread use dust covers.
Elliott: If someone can tell me how to post photos here, I will show you how I re-enforced and increased the mass of the Victor QL-10 plinth that came with my TT101. All done with aluminum custom fitted.
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Elliot, I guess you have decided to be anal about the rubber bushing and CW droop, but in any case, the UA77 is not in the same league with the UA7045 or 7082. I'm sure it "works", however. It's actually a piece of cake to replace the rubber grommet on 7045/7082, if droop or sag bother you. You need a tiny metric socket wrench to remove two tiny set screws and a good hardware store or mail order from McMaster-Carr.
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Mike, Your testfor the validity of a dust cover is fatally flawed. The problem with dust covers is due to the fact that sonic energy radiates from the cartridge as it traverses the LP. Trapping that energy under a dust cover so that vibrations bounce around and feed back on the cartridge body is not good. You’ve ignored that very real phenomenon.
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I’ll agree that the sagging photo is a bit too sagging. It’s condition is something like mine, which does need a new grommet.
Since there are may be half a dozen people in the whole world who give a s**t about this question, maybe we should stop? And maybe Chak would stop preaching on the subject. Instead, it would be better if you would qualify your remarks as "opinion". To which you are entitled.
And we can move on to something equally boring.
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Chak, I am looking at your post of 12/22 at 12:06. Do you not see a slight sag in the CW, even for your pristine example? I do.
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Chakster, I owe you a slight apology: The OP did ask about the Victor tonearm, so far as I can tell.
As to the rubber grommet on the UA tonearms, I will accept your statement that the CW starts out level with the arm wand, because I never owned an NOS one, but I still maintain that a few degrees of "sag" is not catastrophic, and there are reasons to believe it is even advisable, as the sag (a few degrees but perceptible) puts the center of mass of the CW in the same plane as the surface of the LP. Many modern tonearm designs (like your and my beloved Reed tonearms and like my Triplanar) do this deliberately, as it minimizes the change in VTF that occurs as the cartridge tracks a warped LP. Further, the grommet decouples the CW from the arm wand with the pivot in between, which is beneficial also. The later versions of the Triplanar also deliberately decouple the CW using a flexible joint, albeit a stiffer one than the one on the UA tonearms. We’ve had this discussion at least half a dozen times.
If Victor designers really thought it was imperative to have the CW sit in a straight line with the arm wand, do you think they would have incorporated that flexible grommet, which inevitably permits sag, in the first place? I don’t. So, the photo you showed of the tonearm that is to be purchased by the OP looks perfectly OK to me. The sag is minimal, and I wouldn’t touch it. Elliot, my advice is leave it alone. Enjoy.
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Chakster, the TT101 is not above criticism, but your statement that it’s “too old” is ridiculous, especially coming from you, and especially since the alternatives you name are about the same vintage. Each of those other TTs you name has its own Achilles heel as far as repairs are concerned.
And the op didn’t ask about vintage DDs.
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We've been over this ground it seems like a thousand times, but I don't think all 3 of the Victor turntables you list have the "bi-directional servo". The TT81 (according to hearsay) and the TT101 (according to my personal experience) are the ones to have.
On tonearm length, a 12-incher would in theory always be "better", geometrically speaking, but you need to factor in the cartridge compliance, the tonearm effective mass (which will always be greater for a 12-inch vs 9-inch version of the same tonearm design and construction), and your ability to set up the tonearm with precise accuracy, because an error in setting up a long tonearm will result in a greater final error in the geometry, compared to a similar error in setting up a 9-incher. Further, longer tonearms might have greater problems with resonance, which will also affect SQ. There is no good single answer to your question.
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