That's the plan as of now. But as you know in our hobby our musical utility function is such a ill behaved one you never know where is global optima.
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MC or MM cartridge for playing used LPs
- Thread starter mahiruha
- Start date
That's the plan as of now. But as you know in our hobby our musical utility function is such a ill behaved one you never know where is global optima.
With a Scheu and a EMT TSD 15 cartridge you probably will not need the VPI. In TSD you have the option of Spherical and Super Fine Line. If your vinyls are pre 60s get spherical. Otherwise get the SFL. Thats what the EMT guys advised me. I use a SFL and old Hindi records sound very good.
shaizada
Active Member
That is repeatable, reversible, accurate VTA settings on the VPI JMW arm...that is such a fantastic luxury to use, it's almost indispensable once you get into using it.
I readjust mine within seconds depending on the 200g, 180g, 150g or regular 120g vinyl in use. I'm always at the right setting thanks to the convenient scale markings on the dial.
I readjust mine within seconds depending on the 200g, 180g, 150g or regular 120g vinyl in use. I'm always at the right setting thanks to the convenient scale markings on the dial.
Some may say frequently adjusting VTA is taking things too far, but some cartridges are very sensitive to correct/incorrect VTA, and a on-the-fly adjustment would be really welcome.
For those who own Rega arms or Origin Live arms, the VTAF from Pete Riggle is said to be very good. He also does a few other arms. This is a possible future upgrade for me.
shaizada
Active Member
It also depends on one's sensitivity to these things as well as system resolution. I'd MUCH rather not have to adjust VTA as needed, but once I hear the differences it makes, it's worth my 2 seconds to readjust.
Many arms have VTA adjusting abilities, however very few have the option to accurately dial back and forth to a given setting. There is no guess work involved with the VPI JMW arm.
Hi,
After doing some research finally decided to get a second arm for my table and to put a suitable cartridge on it. Finally today I could attach that second arm to that table.It is a Transfi terminator tone arm and it is a linear tracking arm. Yet to listen to it but I am already loving the look of it. Hopefully will try and play some vinyls tomorrow. Currently mounted a ortofon OM 5e cart. Waiting for the rega bias 2 cartridge which will be the first proper cartridge to try with.
Thanks.
After doing some research finally decided to get a second arm for my table and to put a suitable cartridge on it. Finally today I could attach that second arm to that table.It is a Transfi terminator tone arm and it is a linear tracking arm. Yet to listen to it but I am already loving the look of it. Hopefully will try and play some vinyls tomorrow. Currently mounted a ortofon OM 5e cart. Waiting for the rega bias 2 cartridge which will be the first proper cartridge to try with.
Thanks.
>>>
Second this completely. I have played a record circa early 60s (which was originally available in 78 rpm shellac and must have been transferred to 33 1/3 format much later) on the TSD 15 SFL ( Super Fine Line) and it sounds fine.
I will think of the TCS 15 Spherical if I manage a substantial bunch of pre-1960s records.
Regards
issigonis
Hi Prem,
thanks. Yes London Decca is a very good match.Vic told me this arm can take wide range of cartridges. I have opted for EMT TSD 15 N SFL but it will take some time to arrive. Till it arrives I will use rega bias 2 to get familiar with this arm. It was quite a bit of work to set it up and I am yet to understand all the finer adjustments. You have made a prudent decision going with EMT as this table and tonearm is quite a bit of work to set up properly compared to EMT or VPI .I liked the concept of Salvation which is an isolated idler drive TT I think.
Thanks.
@ Issigonis : That's good to hear. Listening #101 Page 3 | Stereophile.com This article is quite good about this cartridge and talks about the spherical point.
thanks. Yes London Decca is a very good match.Vic told me this arm can take wide range of cartridges. I have opted for EMT TSD 15 N SFL but it will take some time to arrive. Till it arrives I will use rega bias 2 to get familiar with this arm. It was quite a bit of work to set it up and I am yet to understand all the finer adjustments. You have made a prudent decision going with EMT as this table and tonearm is quite a bit of work to set up properly compared to EMT or VPI .I liked the concept of Salvation which is an isolated idler drive TT I think.
Thanks.
@ Issigonis : That's good to hear. Listening #101 Page 3 | Stereophile.com This article is quite good about this cartridge and talks about the spherical point.
Thanks Dr Bass.
Finally the tone arm is set up and it is actually playing music. There were lot of hurdles and I had to understand all the working principles to make it work eventually. The main advantage of a linear arm is the overhang adjustment is pretty simple I just needed to align the cartridge with a straight line and I used HFN Lp template for that. Balancing the the slider was really tricky issue as it moves quite a lot with slight adjustment of the leveling screws. As things are still in experimental phase I didn't try my SL phono stage instead I tried my Creek Obh 15 phono pre and connected it to my amp. The main thing one has to make sure setting up this arm is the slider must move absolutely effortlessly and to make sure the stylus traverses a liner path.
Now I just played with my ortofon om 5e cart that came with my project debut III TT 4 years ago. So it is not directly comparable with my stock VPI tonearm + cartridge combo. One thing I noticed is even with om 5 cart how effortlessly the music is played as a result the music is more fluid. Dynamics is also better. I need to experiment more with lot of other settings including VTA on the fly adjustments. The kind of promise it is showing with om 5 I can see it has lot of potential with a quality cart.Another thing I noticed is its ability play scratched records. My Vpi tone arm struggeld to play Lata's meera bhajan record when I tried to play it once but this arm played it effortlessly and I could sit and hear whole side. Today I have received the Rega bias 2 cart. My next experiment will be to see how this rega cart performs with this tonearm. I also received the tonearm bubble level which will also help me to properly adjust the azimuth as I have always struggled to do this adjustment. Overall the experiment is good so far lets see how it goes in future.
Thanks.
Finally the tone arm is set up and it is actually playing music. There were lot of hurdles and I had to understand all the working principles to make it work eventually. The main advantage of a linear arm is the overhang adjustment is pretty simple I just needed to align the cartridge with a straight line and I used HFN Lp template for that. Balancing the the slider was really tricky issue as it moves quite a lot with slight adjustment of the leveling screws. As things are still in experimental phase I didn't try my SL phono stage instead I tried my Creek Obh 15 phono pre and connected it to my amp. The main thing one has to make sure setting up this arm is the slider must move absolutely effortlessly and to make sure the stylus traverses a liner path.
Now I just played with my ortofon om 5e cart that came with my project debut III TT 4 years ago. So it is not directly comparable with my stock VPI tonearm + cartridge combo. One thing I noticed is even with om 5 cart how effortlessly the music is played as a result the music is more fluid. Dynamics is also better. I need to experiment more with lot of other settings including VTA on the fly adjustments. The kind of promise it is showing with om 5 I can see it has lot of potential with a quality cart.Another thing I noticed is its ability play scratched records. My Vpi tone arm struggeld to play Lata's meera bhajan record when I tried to play it once but this arm played it effortlessly and I could sit and hear whole side. Today I have received the Rega bias 2 cart. My next experiment will be to see how this rega cart performs with this tonearm. I also received the tonearm bubble level which will also help me to properly adjust the azimuth as I have always struggled to do this adjustment. Overall the experiment is good so far lets see how it goes in future.
Thanks.
^^^
Nice, very nice.
At one point I also seriously considered this arm. I was not sure I could set it up properly so I gave up and ended up buying a conventional arm.
By the way, did you buy it together with the pump or did you end up buying it locally? How far away do you have to place the pump (assuming it is buzzy)?
Nice, very nice.
At one point I also seriously considered this arm. I was not sure I could set it up properly so I gave up and ended up buying a conventional arm.
By the way, did you buy it together with the pump or did you end up buying it locally? How far away do you have to place the pump (assuming it is buzzy)?
Hi Jsl,
yes it is bit complicated to set up but it is an interesting exercise. On the positive side the overhang adjustment is pretty straightforward no complicated curves are involved so problem of tracking error gets eliminated very easily. I have bought all the stuff from Vic and it came by post uneventfully. The pump is pretty quiet. For the time being it is placed close to 2 m from the TT but I can place it in another room. No issues.
Thanks.
yes it is bit complicated to set up but it is an interesting exercise. On the positive side the overhang adjustment is pretty straightforward no complicated curves are involved so problem of tracking error gets eliminated very easily. I have bought all the stuff from Vic and it came by post uneventfully. The pump is pretty quiet. For the time being it is placed close to 2 m from the TT but I can place it in another room. No issues.
Thanks.
Hi Mahiruha,
Thanks for the review. That arm was in my want question mark list. Good to know it tracks even bad LPs. If it sound more fluid than even your unipivot arm, that's good to hear. Your original arm on the VPI was a unipivot right?
Regards
Thanks for the review. That arm was in my want question mark list. Good to know it tracks even bad LPs. If it sound more fluid than even your unipivot arm, that's good to hear. Your original arm on the VPI was a unipivot right?
Regards
Hi,
The transfi tonearm is at last set up properly and doing its musical duties for past one week. There were moments of lot of frustration as I really struggled to fit the rega bias 2 cartridge in this arm as it was very light and having very low depth so all the adjustments were reaching limits and the end result was lot of miss tracking. Then I decided I had enough with this cart and decided to put the ortofon 2m red cart which was mounted to my project debut III TT. With ortofon 2m red it was very easy and the performance has been very stable. For past one week I had lot of fun with both the tone arms playing music and did lot of comparisons how the Vpi + dynavector is performing against the 2m red + trasnfi combo. I can say Transfi is giving the VPI tonearm a very good run for its money even with the 2m red cart. One of the main advantage is it plays all the songs of LP in similar fashion which I think is a result of a minimal tracking error. I think both the combos are equally good in detail retrieval but the dynavector really shines at overall presentation giving a more refined feeling to the overall performance. The cable in transfi is pure silver which goes directly to the phono stage. I guess the cable will take a bit of time to fully burn in but I am really impressed with what I am hearing already. The initial experiment with Transfi is over and the result is very satisfactory now I am eagerly waiting for the EMT TSD 15 N cartridge and I am confident it will take the performance to a completely new level.
The people who wants to go for Transfi can confidently take the plunge provided they have lot of patience as the beginning can be quite frustrating.After this exercise I have realized one thing that any future purchase of tonearm has to be linear air bearing as the they do lot of things in a correct manner and the way it should be with a lot of flexibility to adjust manythings. The only downside with transfi is one has to be very very careful to slide the record under the arm as there is not much room and record can get scratched easily if not done properly.
Thanks.
The transfi tonearm is at last set up properly and doing its musical duties for past one week. There were moments of lot of frustration as I really struggled to fit the rega bias 2 cartridge in this arm as it was very light and having very low depth so all the adjustments were reaching limits and the end result was lot of miss tracking. Then I decided I had enough with this cart and decided to put the ortofon 2m red cart which was mounted to my project debut III TT. With ortofon 2m red it was very easy and the performance has been very stable. For past one week I had lot of fun with both the tone arms playing music and did lot of comparisons how the Vpi + dynavector is performing against the 2m red + trasnfi combo. I can say Transfi is giving the VPI tonearm a very good run for its money even with the 2m red cart. One of the main advantage is it plays all the songs of LP in similar fashion which I think is a result of a minimal tracking error. I think both the combos are equally good in detail retrieval but the dynavector really shines at overall presentation giving a more refined feeling to the overall performance. The cable in transfi is pure silver which goes directly to the phono stage. I guess the cable will take a bit of time to fully burn in but I am really impressed with what I am hearing already. The initial experiment with Transfi is over and the result is very satisfactory now I am eagerly waiting for the EMT TSD 15 N cartridge and I am confident it will take the performance to a completely new level.
The people who wants to go for Transfi can confidently take the plunge provided they have lot of patience as the beginning can be quite frustrating.After this exercise I have realized one thing that any future purchase of tonearm has to be linear air bearing as the they do lot of things in a correct manner and the way it should be with a lot of flexibility to adjust manythings. The only downside with transfi is one has to be very very careful to slide the record under the arm as there is not much room and record can get scratched easily if not done properly.
Thanks.
Good to know that you finally got it right.
I can imagine how it will sound with better cart.
Is the EMT already ordered? I have been reading up on Decca cartridges and they seem to particularly pair well with linear arms.
I can imagine how it will sound with better cart.
Is the EMT already ordered? I have been reading up on Decca cartridges and they seem to particularly pair well with linear arms.
Thanks Jls.
Yes the EMT has already been ordered. I think this arm gives me perfect opportunity to build up my cartridge portfolio as new wands are not that expensive and very simple to change.
I also read about Decca cartridges go well with linear tracking arm but I am not sure the reason behind it. Actually decca produces their own reference linear tracking arm.
London Decca Audio
Similarly clear audio has their own portfolio of linear tracking arms and they produce cartridges too.
Produkte | Tonarme | Tangential | Radial | TT3, Verify, Clarify, Magnify, Universal, Statement, Unify, Satisfy
I guess there is a case that all the cartridge manufacturers who manufactures linear arms as well claims better synergy.
Transfi claim is quite simple.
"To satisfy the technogeeks, a word on cartridge compliance:
Using pivoted arm criteria to measure an air bearing in a parallel tracker is about as useful as road test data for cars being used for hovercraft. So, the below is an attempt at an explanation:
The inertias of the vertical component is different from the horizontal component. Horizontally, because there is no pivot, the inertia is equivalent to its mass, in this case ~ 80g. The vertical component, by design, is approx 25x less, ie ~3g. Horizontal resonance is typically between 12-16hz, vertical 5-7Hz.
Vertical inertia must be as low as possible, & the horizontal is already high as per Ladegaards recommendations. To a certain extent, the air pressure being used can influence all of the above.
Poul Ladegaard's Air Bearing Tangential Tonearm Page Read the 2nd arm.
If you study my online manual, you will see there is a section on increasing inertia by simple adding weight to the slider..
However, its really not worth getting bogged down in this technicality....all cartridges seem to work well with the Tomahawk wands. I have found this to be true of low & high compliance cartidges. Any problems affecting the performance of a given cartridge are mainly due to setup error.
Experiments with damping have shown it is detrimental to Terminators performance & really not necessary. "
Hence I guess it is a trial and error process. Honestly speaking my ideal linear tracking arm would be Tonarme | clearaudio Statement TT1 | Tangential or the one shown in the video Greek Audiophile - YouTube
check from 7:51 to 8:22.
The reason I call them ideal because they don't interfere with the platter while placing the record or the periphery ring. My long term plan is to buy something like that or ask somebody to make it for me. Lets see.
Thanks.
Yes the EMT has already been ordered. I think this arm gives me perfect opportunity to build up my cartridge portfolio as new wands are not that expensive and very simple to change.
I also read about Decca cartridges go well with linear tracking arm but I am not sure the reason behind it. Actually decca produces their own reference linear tracking arm.
London Decca Audio
Similarly clear audio has their own portfolio of linear tracking arms and they produce cartridges too.
Produkte | Tonarme | Tangential | Radial | TT3, Verify, Clarify, Magnify, Universal, Statement, Unify, Satisfy
I guess there is a case that all the cartridge manufacturers who manufactures linear arms as well claims better synergy.
Transfi claim is quite simple.
"To satisfy the technogeeks, a word on cartridge compliance:
Using pivoted arm criteria to measure an air bearing in a parallel tracker is about as useful as road test data for cars being used for hovercraft. So, the below is an attempt at an explanation:
The inertias of the vertical component is different from the horizontal component. Horizontally, because there is no pivot, the inertia is equivalent to its mass, in this case ~ 80g. The vertical component, by design, is approx 25x less, ie ~3g. Horizontal resonance is typically between 12-16hz, vertical 5-7Hz.
Vertical inertia must be as low as possible, & the horizontal is already high as per Ladegaards recommendations. To a certain extent, the air pressure being used can influence all of the above.
Poul Ladegaard's Air Bearing Tangential Tonearm Page Read the 2nd arm.
If you study my online manual, you will see there is a section on increasing inertia by simple adding weight to the slider..
However, its really not worth getting bogged down in this technicality....all cartridges seem to work well with the Tomahawk wands. I have found this to be true of low & high compliance cartidges. Any problems affecting the performance of a given cartridge are mainly due to setup error.
Experiments with damping have shown it is detrimental to Terminators performance & really not necessary. "
Hence I guess it is a trial and error process. Honestly speaking my ideal linear tracking arm would be Tonarme | clearaudio Statement TT1 | Tangential or the one shown in the video Greek Audiophile - YouTube
check from 7:51 to 8:22.
The reason I call them ideal because they don't interfere with the platter while placing the record or the periphery ring. My long term plan is to buy something like that or ask somebody to make it for me. Lets see.
Thanks.
Hi Mahiruha,
Decca carts being cantilever-less put a lot of energy back into the arm. Hence damping is essential. That's why I got the SME FD fluid damper even though the SME is not the best match, ideally a unipivot. With a linear tracker like yours there's no conventional pivot so the issues of having to damp are eliminated.
If you get your dream arm and want to sell the transfi please remember me first
Regards
Decca carts being cantilever-less put a lot of energy back into the arm. Hence damping is essential. That's why I got the SME FD fluid damper even though the SME is not the best match, ideally a unipivot. With a linear tracker like yours there's no conventional pivot so the issues of having to damp are eliminated.
If you get your dream arm and want to sell the transfi please remember me first
Regards
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