Do wooden arms warp

Honest, guys, this issue needs to be put to death. Whether "they" warp or not, and I don't doubt that wood tonearms are susceptible to warping, some wood tonearms are among the best I've ever heard, to include the Talea and the Reed. Vacuum tubes inevitably wear and change specs over time; do you wish to avoid vacuum tubes too, as a matter of principle? (Halcro, I know you prefer SS; that's not the point.) Cartridges wear out and change over time even while we are adoring them. Audio is an unstable hobby in general.

In the real world, modern tonearms are made by guys who do understand these properties of wood. Then the tonearms go to live in our air conditioned/heated living rooms; they don't sit outside in the rain. How much warpage over how much time is prohibitive? Does anyone really believe that a wood tonearm is warping at a rate that will ruin alignment and geometry within any period of time that makes this a real problem? Any evidence for that? Guys who don't like wood tonearms or who have some ax to grind regarding whatever metal tonearm he or she worships like to carp on this issue of "warpage". It's not a real world, real time issue. I don't really give a shit if my Reed has warped a tiny bit in the next 50 years. I have a wood Grace tonearm (which I just keep around for sentimental reasons) that looks by eye to be as straight and true as a piece of steel, after 30 or so years of living in a controlled humidity indoor environment. There are some theoretical advantages to a wooden arm wand in terms of dissipation of energy that can be said to be superior to metals, but I am not here to say that wood is superior to metal. I am just saying that wood is in the picture as an excellent material to use to build an arm wand, if the maker knows what he is doing. I have heard both carbon fiber and ceramic arm wands; they suck.

Lewn,

Carbon and cermic arm can sound great as well. It is not the material it is the implimentation. But I agree with you. Reed arms can sound great. But I wonder how much influence the type of wood has. Reed has lots of options on finish and wood type.

In 1972 I was at Audio Arts in Livermore, CA, the new hi-fi shop of Walt Davies, now of Last fame. Walt was just becoming an Audio Research dealer, and Bill Johnson was at the shop, delivering and setting up a complete ARC system. SP-3 pre-amp, D-51 and D-75 amps bi-amped on Magneplanar I-U's. The source was a Thorens TD-125 Mk.II with a Decca Blue cartridge, and the arm was Bill's prototype, which never went into production. It was a flat piece of wood, maybe 1" wide by 1/4-1/2" thick (if I remember correctly), like the old Grado. I paid for one when I bought my whole system from Walt, but had to settle for a Decca Unipivot when the ARC never materialized.

We talk a lot about positioning of the stylus in the record groove with utmost precision and accuracy- as in microns. It's hard to imagine a wooden tone arm holding a set up for more than a few hours. Maybe it can be more dimensionally stable if it is heavily varnished; but then it is no longer a purely wooden arm. Perhaps there are those who do not mind reviewing set up periodically to have that special sound that they want. Certain air bearing linear arms need periodic maintainence to remain at top performance.

they definitely age and even warp despite of implementation quality. 40...50 years vintage wood arms by no means can match the quality of ones made of metal or aluminium back then.

there's also nothing wrong using or not using tubes which is only upto consumer. i like lots of power and control where tubes are either inefficient or make no sense at all. it all comes from speakers you want to listen and than match the proper amp weather it's tube or transistor.