VPI 3D tonearm

Wc65mustang, Perhaps you should reveal what it is you have against Harry Weisfeld and VPI.
(Kidding, but could not resist.)

None or nearly none of the companies that market "wires" actually make any of their wires. They buy wire from foundries. After that, it's a matter of solid core vs stranded vs Litz, grounding, shielding, single-ended vs balanced connection, silver vs copper, purity of the metals used, etc, etc. Brand names mean nothing.
So, tell me what is a Discovery wire and what is a Valhalla tonearm wire? The Nordost wires I have personally auditioned in my home system have all made my ears bleed, but I never tried Valhalla. I wired a preamp with Discovery, found it to be "OK", but the earth did not move for me. I like solid core, thin gauge or thin ribbon, silver wire of high purity, insulated with teflon or cloth. Pure copper of the same description is OK too. The idea of using a DC voltage to apply a bias on the shield is interesting to me, but I've never tried it. Beyond choosing one's own preferences from among the long list of alternatives, the boutique audio wire idea is rubbish.

Goertz wire, which may no longer exist, always seemed to me to give the most bang for the buck. But arguing in free space about Valhalla vs Discovery is a waste of energy.

Halcro, you seem to know something about 3D printing. My machinist friend says it is "old news", only new to audio but still at a very expensive stage of development. Seems to me that 3D printing might be a very cost-effective way to generate complex shapes that would otherwise require prohibitively expensive machining to achieve starting from one solid piece of material. It also seems to me possible that epoxy could be an excellent material for making a tonearm. It might also not be any good. You mentioned "welding" as an alternative method to generate complexity, but that would be cheating. In welding you join two different pieces together permanently. At the junction is the weld material that forms an interface of source. That is likely NOT analogous to 3D printing.

Dear Henry, You obviously have a vast knowledge of esoteric manufacturing processes. Thanks for the input on that subject. However, I would take issue with your last sentence:

"But casting, welding, machining and gluing do." This was written in reference to what makes a one-piece construct. Welding and gluing do NOT make a one-piece construct, by my strict definition. Welding and gluing can fuse two constructs that are separately one piece each. In both techniques there will be an interface even between two items machined from identical materials, where the foreign material in the joint (glue or weld) could act to reflect energy and create spurious resonances. Casting and machining have their limitations, as well. Could you admit that it is remotely possible that there could be some advantage to the use of 3D printing to make a tonearm that is "more" of a single piece than was heretofore achieved (by technologies with which the rest of us are somewhat familiar)?

I have no idea whether the VPI tonearm is good, bad, or indifferent, but the project seems novel and interesting. It's possible that the 3D printing is ground-breaking but that epoxy sucks for a tonearm. We'll find out.

You might better say that introducing a Classic 4 so soon after the Classic 3 is an example of something not so admirable.

Anyway, Two things are certain: (1) The early adapters will be ecstatic over this tonearm, and (2) we'll be arguing over why that is.

Stringreen, Why would you say categorically that the idea is to get the counter-wt as close as possible to the pivot? The square of its distance from the pivot affects effective mass. The stone-body Koetsu might benefit from a high effective mass. Most report that it does; for example it is said to perform wonderfully in the very heavy FR66S. Granted, for other reasons, a large pivot to counter-wt distance is not the optimal way to gain effective mass.