Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site angband.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!ut-sally!mordor!angband!sjc
From: sjc@angband.UUCP (Steve Correll)
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Re: request for turntable recommendation
Message-ID: <33@angband.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 30-Nov-84 23:15:36 EST
Article-I.D.: angband.33
Posted: Fri Nov 30 23:15:36 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 2-Dec-84 05:40:45 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: S-1 Project, LLNL
Lines: 36

I don't own one and can't claim expertise, but I am skeptical of
tangential tonearms. (I'm boycotting the term "linear" now that vendors
like Dual are confusing the issue by touting "straight line" tonearms,
which turn out to be conventional pivoted arms with the cartridge
mounted at an angle, obviating the traditional curve in the arm).

An author in Audio within the past year or so (sorry I haven't the date
at hand) published the deviation from tangency required to trigger the
servomechanisms on several tangential arms. He claimed that the figures
weren't much less than the deviation from tangency for a well-designed
pivoted arm, and they were all down in the noise compared with the sort
of error you get from an imperfectly mounted cartridge.  He suggested
that the benefits attributed to tangential arms are due not to the
elimination of tracking error, but to the reduction in arm mass, since
most tangential arms are considerably shorter than pivoted ones.

I wish audio manufacturers would:

   a) Adopt a standard cartridge mounting scheme (perhaps the P-mount?)
   which would guarantee correct alignment, without relying on the
   dealer or consumer to be conscientious with screwdrivers, protractors,
   overhang gauges, and shims.

   b) Adopt damping mechanisms like Shure's brush or various vendors'
   arm-damping, so that no matter what the arm mass and cartridge
   compliance are, the low-frequency resonance is negligible.

   c) Standardize the vertical tracking angle. I realize the ill
   effects differ, but it seems ridiculous that we go to great effort
   to eliminate variations from tangency on the order of a degree,
   while blithely ignoring the fact that vertical tracking angles
   vary by up to ten degrees or so among cutters and cartridges.

-- 
                                                           --Steve Correll
sjc@s1-c.ARPA, ...!decvax!decwrl!mordor!sjc, or ...!ucbvax!dual!mordor!sjc