Unipivot tonearms less forgiving of Vinyl quality?


Couple of times that I have come across unipivot tonearms (once in my own system), I observed that when the vinyl is really good (physical quality and recording quality) the sound was superb, really special in terms of dynamics but when a slightly worn out/old vinyl is played the sound was equally coarse. Typically old vinyls which have been played a lot many times (generally pop/rock recordings) can have more noise but through unipivot tonearms it seemed to be exaggerated, the music sounded relatively abrasive (something like poorly implemented oversampling dacs).

Is it something to do with unipivots ? Or is it a case of tonearm not setup correctly ? I know the TT and cart also plays a major role in this but I did hear those setups with regular gimballed arms and they seemed to be lot more accommodating of such vinyls, playing more music than noise.

Has anyone else noticed this ?
pani

Showing 2 responses by tobes

Well, I find line contact equipped cartridges to be quietest in regard to groove noise and ticks/pops.
Some people seem to think line contact styli exacerbate noise, but I simply haven't found this to be the case.
Not something I've noted.
IME, the stylus profile has the greatest influence on record noise. I prefer line contact types.