Schitt Sol Turntable

[SIY]

What happened with your SP-10 project?

That's a work in progress, the board-level fault is being stubborn about being uncovered. And the move here really set me back timewise. So I was looking for something to use in the meantime since some generous soul (not mentioning any names but his initials are JPJ) loaned me a superb Technics arm...

Ideal situation: someone covets my black Ittok LVII and offers to trade me a working SP-10.

 

[watchnerd]

I haven't tried any of the more recent ones, the later SME looks potentially better but, amusingly, it is the crap one which has become the world standard.

In the ears of the public, perhaps the crap one is even part of the 'sound of vinyl' at this point.

 

[AudioSceptic]

Funnily enough the little plastic slide and clip in cartridge carriers Garrard made were much better, but died with the company (and were critiscised by many - not expensive enough looking I suppose)
I haven't tried any of the more recent ones, the later SME looks potentially better but, amusingly, it is the crap one which has become the world standard.

I remember this becoming an issue when MCs became popular. It didn't seem to be talked about when MMs ruled the roost. Was this because MCs generally had much lower compliance than MMs, causing more energy to be fed into the arm (that was the theory then), or some other factor, like better resolution in the rest of the system exposing the problems? (Yes, fixed headshells were already around, but that was for the reduced effective mass to match high compliance MMs, not because of a weakness in headshell attachment.)

 

[anmpr1]

Funnily enough the little plastic slide and clip in cartridge carriers Garrard made were much better, but died with the company (and were critiscised by many - not expensive enough looking I suppose)

The Garrard system was/is very simple--just a slide in plug or sled. Very easy to mount a cartridge, and once it's inserted, quite snug. It takes a little prying to remove it, in fact. I don't remember about the other Garrards I owned, but the Z-100 came with a little jig you slip over the slide, aligning the stylus point with a marked line. Then it was set for tangency. Hard to believe, but you can still find NOS Garrard slides for sale. They must have made tens of thousands. If only the rest of the deck was as simple. You turn it over, look at all those levers, springs and gears and say, "My God! Who thought that up?!"

Dual cartridge mounts (the two I owned--1229 and 704) didn't seem as positive as the Garrard system, and were certainly a bit more complex. As I recall the mount was held to the tonearm by a hinged mechanism. You pushed up the arm finger lift back and it would pop out.

I would not advise anyone to own a turntable/arm unless it had some kind of removable shell. Change cartridges on my Grace 707? Have to remove the arm wand and pivot assembly from its base in order to do it. And you better keep a soldering iron handy in case you pull off one of the tiny wires. Ridiculous. The G-747 version had a removable headshell. Why I didn't keep that, and sell the 707, is one of those mysteries I'll never understand.

 

[watchnerd]

I would not advise anyone to own a turntable/arm unless it had some kind of removable shell.

You mean like the Sol?

It lets you swap arm wands; I think they're $200 a pop.

 

[AudioSceptic]

You mean like the Sol?

It lets you swap arm wands; I think they're $200 a pop.

So this is like a Naim Aro on-the-cheap, or the Haycock GH228 on the almost-as-cheap (the Hadcock was cheaply made but worked really well for those with the patience).

That is not an "arm wand". It's the whole movable arm, with ½ of the bearing included. I remember that the SME S3 had a replaceable arm "wand", and maybe the Graham much more recently. Any more contenders?

 

[watchnerd]

So this is like a Naim Aro on-the-cheap, or the Haycock GH228 on the almost-as-cheap (the Hadcock was cheaply made but worked really well for those with the patience).
That is not an "arm wand". It's the whole movable arm, with ½ of the bearing included. I remember that the SME S3 had a replaceable arm "wand", and maybe the Graham much more recently. Any more contenders?

Arm wand is the term VPI uses for basically the same thing as the Sol for their uni pivot arms:

https://www.musicdirect.com/tonearms/vpi-extra-armwand

 

[anmpr1]

You mean like the Sol?

It lets you swap arm wands; I think they're $200 a pop.

Removable wand is fine. It's the arms with no way to get at the underside easily that cause problems when changing carts. I owned a two JVC turntables. They both used replaceable wands--one straight and the other curved, which allowed you to attach a standard headshell. That was pretty ergonomic. The Technics EPA 500 system was one of the most advanced iterations of the idea.

PS: design-wise, the problem with the EPA 500 was that the lateral pivots were not parallel to the headshell offset. This would cause an upward arc rotation of the stylus during a warp. A lateral pivot that is parallel to the headshell offset causes the stylus to rise straight up, tangent to the record groove. The EPA-100 was designed correctly, in this regard, as are the standard Technics arm. I can only presume that the engineering and manufacture of a removable wand at the pivot necessitated the EPA-500 geometry.

 

[AudioSceptic]

Arm wand is the term VPI uses for basically the same thing as the Sol for their uni pivot arms:

https://www.musicdirect.com/tonearms/vpi-extra-armwand

OK, fair enough. It doesn't really have an established meaning, other than the stick a magician waves around.

 

[AudioSceptic]

PS: design-wise, the problem with the EPA 500 was that the lateral pivots were not parallel to the headshell offset. This would cause an upward arc rotation of the stylus during a warp. A lateral pivot that is parallel to the headshell offset causes the stylus to rise straight up, tangent to the record groove.

I've always been surprised how common this is. It's almost as if the designers think that all records are perfectly flat.

 

[anmpr1]

I've always been surprised how common this is. It's almost as if the designers think that all records are perfectly flat.

Yes, indeed. However, writing about geometry so early in the AM is not my thing. I wrote 'headshell offset', but the actual tangent should be the cantilever. Which really is the same thing for all practical purposes. It's kind of abstract to visualize from words, and I might not have done the best job. I'll let a master, S. K Pramanik, explain. His article in the June 1980 Audio magazine is a treasure of good information on tonearm design, and everyone interested ought to read it:

"The ideal bearing position is at a height above the record surface equal to the height of warps, which results in minimal changes in relative speed [of the stylus vis a vis the record]. The axis of the horizontal bearing can lead to another undesired effect unless it is perpendicular to the axis of the cartridge cantilever. As the tonearm moves up under the action of warps, the arm 'twists' simultaneously with respect to the record surface. The result is a changing crosstalk pattern as the arm moves up and down, depending on the angle between the transducer elements and the record surface, and this leads to an unsteady or unstable stereo image. In an ideal case the horizontal bearing will be perpendicular to the axis of the cantilever, so that the cartridge does not twist (as shown in the figure)."

 

[Frank Dernie]

lower compliance than MMs, causing more energy to be fed into the arm (that was the theory then

One of the many bits of bollox prevalent in enthusiast discussion of record players.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Yes, fixed headshells were already around, but that was for the reduced effective mass to match high compliance MMs, not because of a weakness in headshell attachment.

The weakness of headshell attachment was known about 45 years ago when I was doing it. Not many arms had detachable headshells then. Nowadays enthusiasts want to dick about with different sounding cartridges so having a plethora mounted in headshells appeals to them, I suppose.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Yes, indeed. However, writing about geometry so early in the AM is not my thing. I wrote 'headshell offset', but the actual tangent should be the cantilever. Which really is the same thing for all practical purposes. It's kind of abstract to visualize from words, and I might not have done the best job. I'll let a master, S. K Pramanik, explain. His article in the June 1980 Audio magazine is a treasure of good information on tonearm design, and everyone interested ought to read it:

"The ideal bearing position is at a height above the record surface equal to the height of warps, which results in minimal changes in relative speed [of the stylus vis a vis the record]. The axis of the horizontal bearing can lead to another undesired effect unless it is perpendicular to the axis of the cartridge cantilever. As the tonearm moves up under the action of warps, the arm 'twists' simultaneously with respect to the record surface. The result is a changing crosstalk pattern as the arm moves up and down, depending on the angle between the transducer elements and the record surface, and this leads to an unsteady or unstable stereo image. In an ideal case the horizontal bearing will be perpendicular to the axis of the cantilever, so that the cartridge does not twist (as shown in the figure)."

View attachment 33420

Quite so, and to minimise stylus fore and aft movement over warps, causing warp wow the pivot needs to be at record surface level.
A surprisingly large number of arms on sale have bad geometry.

 

[watchnerd]

Quite so, and to minimise stylus fore and aft movement over warps, causing warp wow the pivot needs to be at record surface level.
A surprisingly large number of arms on sale have bad geometry.

Aren't dynamic balance tonearms supposed to mitigate this to some extent?

 

[AudioSceptic]

One of the many bits of bollox prevalent in enthusiast discussion of record players.

Thanks. Always wondered about that.

 

[anmpr1]

Aren't dynamic balance tonearms supposed to mitigate this to some extent?

A dynamic balanced arm will mitigate against tracking force discrepancy on an unlevel surface.

But if the pivot is appreciably higher than the record itself, there will be increased vertical arm motion (rising and falling) proportional to the distance of the pivot above the record. Again, Dr. Pramanik:

"The height of the horizontal bearing above the record surface is important for reproduction quality. As the tonearm moves up and down under the influence of record warps, the stylus moves in an arc. When the axis of the horizontal bearing is well above the record surface (figure 7a), the stylus will move forward simultaneously with its upward movement, and the speed of the record goove relative to the stylus will decrease. The effect is identical to a decrease in turntable speed, and it lowers the pitch of the reproduced signal. The reverse occurs as the stylus moves down the warp and the pitch returns to nominal value.

The ideal bearing position is at a height above the record surface equal to the height of warps, which results in minimal changes in relative speed (figure 7b)."

 

[anmpr1]

The AT 1010 tonearm was designed with the pivot at record level. But, alas, the horizontal pivots were not parallel with the cantilever/offset, so while it fixed one problem, it exacerbated another.

 

[anmpr1]

What is needed: a) adjustable dynamic damping; b) pivot at record level; c) pivot matching headshell offset angle; d) dynamic balancing e) gimbal or other fixed bearings with no play f) non contact magnetic anti skating. Have there been tonearms made to those specifications? There must be at least one or two. I mean, is this rocket science? Or are tonearm makers just making it up as they go?

 

[Frank Dernie]

Aren't dynamic balance tonearms supposed to mitigate this to some extent?

The dynamic balance has no impact on the warp wow fore and aft movement of the stylus though it does on vtf fluctuation