Dear friends and @mijostyn : The OP thread is aBOUT THE sat TONEArm but mike brougth here the FCL unipivot tonearm design and posted " serious " statements about his experiences wioth that tonearm like: " the FCL is doing things that no other arm can do " that with out explanation in true has no sense and till today he does not gives us that explanation.
Anyway, when talking of tonearm designs some of you already know that some of us as @mijostyn and me just do not like unipivot designs and for very good reasons.
I owned and still own unipivots ( but I don't use it any more. ) as the Naim Aro ( not bad at all. ), Grace ones I think Stax and the like.
The FCL designer says that with his field copil bearing desing all is solved and he says:
""" We always were fascinated by the simplicity and purity of the unipivot bearing design. The classic unipivot tonearm can sound quite good but has some serious drawbacks. First of all, we never could get used to the handling of the wobbling arm wand. This makes everyday use very unpleasant. A classic unipivot tonearm has also an unfavorable ratio of tonearm balance and bearing point. The center of gravity of the tonearm is much deeper than the bearing point and that leads to a high moment of inertia. Another, often OVERLOOKED POINT IS THE FACT,THAT ALL THE ENERGY FROM THE TONEARM IS DERIVED AT THIS TINY POINT ( bearing. ) INTO THE TONEARM BASE. THE ENERGY THAT A CARTRIDGE TRANSFER INTO THE ARM WAND when playing an LP IS ENORMOUS and THE ENERGY TRANSFER AT THE BEARING POINT IS VERY CRITICAL. "
This last disadvante on unipivots is , as he said, CRITICAL and we can't avoid it because Law's Newton are what are and that ENERGY appears again in the arm wand as feedback in more critical way than in non-unipivot tonearm designs.
That huge energy develops high distortions type that the cartridge pick up ones and again. Every kind of energy/resonance, vibrations, distortions pass through that single point and return through its. Very bad.
The FCL designer says: " and sonically performance unmatched by any other uni-pivot tonearm design. " Obviously that the designer took care not to post " unmatched by any other tonearm " but only unipivots.
Mike likes it a lot the FCL when compared with the Tosca but he in some ways was accustomed to unipivots when for years he owned the Durand ones.
In the other side the Tosca and the FCL are not only totally different designs but his FCL is 12" long and we all read here ( in objective terms not subjective . ) why shortest tonearms is the way to go .
I have to mention too that been an unipivot FC or not the 12" has a higher torsional microscopic movements than any 9"-10" tonearm and his sample is made of wood. Other characteristic could be that the internal FCL wiring and headshell cartridge connectors be different in the Tosca than in the FCL, only these different characteristics along the 12" long sure that makes differences and in objective way I can't see why those differences could be for the better.
We all know that not all what " shines " is gold and I respect the mike opinion but I like to go alittle deeper in my observations that ceratinly can be true or not .
Anyway, that's my opinion with out listen the FCL and as @mijostyn with the SAT not only I don't need a new tonearm but I certainly do not buy even if the money is no object.
R.