Pete Riggle Woody tonearm

Lovely and unique tonearm. I heard it with a lowly Shure M97 and felt it delivered
solid musicality. Would love to hear it with a first class moving coil. Here is a video I shot last month showing the master with his creation. The 2Sw speakers are also a wonder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTt5_AydmxE&feature=related

You guys are making me feel good. I just bought a pair of 2SWs, just because I could not resist. They are on the way. I need to talk to Pete about them, I think.

From photos, it looks like the headshell could rotate to any offset angle, since it is held in place by only a single screw. Does Pete provide a guide for setting the offset angle? After owning a Reed tonearm and after hearing a Talea in my neighbor's system (Yes, Reed and Talea in two different homes on the same block in Bethesda, MD), I have come to wonder whether there is something special about wood per se as a tonearm material.

I have a friend in Seattle who owns a talea arm. It would be interesting to compare these two very different arms.
Don't know about setting the offset angle. You might just want to contact the master and ask. He is quite a nice gentleman.

R

Dear Lew, First thing first. Congratulation with the 2 SWs.
I am only envious with people who own better speakers than
I do. Then the obvious. On the Reed site you can see measurements comparison between wood-wands as well between metal- and woodwands.

Regards,

Nikola, What did they measure?

Talea also uses but one screw to affix their rudimentary headshell to the wood tonearm wand. In fact, by inspection of photos, the two tonearms appear to have a lot in common as regards the implementation of a headshell. For one thing, in both cases, I wonder how efficiently energy can be transferred away from the cartridge body. In both tonearms there is a wood/metal interface at the juncture of the headshell/arm wand (this creates an impedance to energy transfer), and then there is the matter of the single screw attachment, which might not afford max transmission efficiency, as regards energy. I am engaging in silly audiophool speculation; I have heard the Talea, and it works!!!