Is the Acoustical Systems Axiom Tonearm the Modern Fidelity Research or Ikeda?

[Solypsa]

Tang, As I recall you have a special 14" Axiom on your EMT, but I believe you have another Axiom at play. Could you remind me what table it lives on? Just so I can digest this thread better

 

[Tango]

Tang, As I recall you have a special 14" Axiom on your EMT, but I believe you have another Axiom at play. Could you remind me what table it lives on? Just so I can digest this thread better

Yes. At present I have two Axiom XL 14" on the 927. I used to have a 12" normal one on the AF1P and AS2000. I had SAT, 12" Axiom, SAEC506 and 3012R all on the AS2000 at the same time for a while to learn.

 

[108CY]

I am only a user of a standard offering of an equipment. The material of arm base, titanium screw, internal wire, etc to be used were provIded by the designer or a vendor of the arm knowing what tt it will be on. So I used what the designer or the vender thought was appropriate or at least not acting detrimentally to the sound. The opinion I gave was just a data point from an actual user for over a few years time. I also encourage people who are interested on any equipment to look into as many datapoint as possible. Study the system of the person who makes comment. Study he who makes comment too.

Interesting you have had great service it seems you have wonderful vendors who were able to help you navigate a maze of combinations available to provide optimum solutions it is so nice you were able to put your full trust in others to make the correct decision. For us mere mortals have to spend crazy amount of time and effort getting things to work so have to customise and go though a lot of trial and error to come up with some pleasing compromises which all it is at end of the day and cannot be considered trivial. For instance No one can ever deny the sincere approach you have taken with great expense time and a lot of patience to get things to where you like it this is truly commendable quite amazing. I put things in to bands they have good properties of merit but may be very different sounding , I don't like to use is always better than the other because different circumstances and different listeners and different preferences come in to play. I prefer to list the benefits of the product so others can use this data to see if a product will be suitable for ones system and preference.

At all times to I like to respect what manufacturers have achieved which in many cases people have gone through great amounts of time effort and money doing without so many other essentials. I respect the end user for there dedication and all the great sacrifices in the pursuit of a sound they prefer. At the end of the day we have to sieve through the analogue minefield methodically and with great patience.

 

[Birdwatcher]

On every turntable the tolerances of the parallelism of the platter surface and the arm base surface ist important and mostly not 100% given.

If you add the length of a 12" Tonearmbase plus the length of a 12" arm as such, you will see, that even 1/100 of a mm surface tolerance can become a serious adjustment situation for the Azimuth. As the Azimuth is in most tonearm Designs easy to fine-tune, the bearing of the Tonearm still "sees" this tolerance.

To my knowledge the Axiom provides on this matter a unique solution. Around the M5 screw are 3 spikes placed.
With the supplied spirit level it is now possible to tune the Axiom in the best parallel way, so that the bearing can move with minimal resistance.

Dietrich definitely prefers to reduce the forces to the bearing, so he likes, that even the tonearm tube as such is fitted in a parallel way only. All adjustments to the cartridge should be done on that place, where the cartridge is fitted, means the Axiom headshell can be used for the VTA optimization as well.

On one hand I understand this unique feature of adjustment.
On the other hand this is a tonearm with excellent bearings. Why should it matters, that the tonearm is not just moving horizontally, but as well in a minimal movement in the vertical bearing, too, if the level of the tonearm is not exactly the same as the platter.
The vertical movement will still be necessary with nearly all not completely flat records, so who cares.

The same question is: why should it be better for the forces in the bearing, that the tonearm is exactly horizontal and not rising or falling some 0,01 degrees. The only important thing could be the height of the bearing axis for vertical movement and the tip of the needle in the groove. But as the cartridges have different heights, even this cannot be designed in advance.

The length of the tonearm doesn’t magnifies the slightly azimuth error of a not parallel mounted tonearm, this degree is the same at the base and at the end of the headshell, regardless of the length.

 

[shakti]

On one hand I understand this unique feature of adjustment.
On the other hand this is a tonearm with excellent bearings. Why should it matters, that the tonearm is not just moving horizontally, but as well in a minimal movement in the vertical bearing, too, if the level of the tonearm is not exactly the same as the platter.
The vertical movement will still be necessary with nearly all not completely flat records, so who cares.

The same question is: why should it be better for the forces in the bearing, that the tonearm is exactly horizontal and not rising or falling some 0,01 degrees. The only important thing could be the height of the bearing axis for vertical movement and the tip of the needle in the groove. But as the cartridges have different heights, even this cannot be designed in advance.

The length of the tonearm doesn’t magnifies the slightly azimuth error of a not parallel mounted tonearm, this degree is the same at the base and at the end of the headshell, regardless of the length.

"Why should it matters"
Why should it be better"

this are the questions, a tonearm Designer on this level of tonearm should ask himself.
As all the obvious questions were answered from all the developers before.

Offering a tonearm at this level starts with the quality of questions and ends with the quality of the answers.

I am happy with the performance of the tonearm, seems, that the questions were answered in the right way.


"The length of the tonearm doesn’t magnifies the slightly azimuth error of a not parallel mounted tonearm, this degree is the same at the base and at the end of the headshell, regardless of the length."

You are right, the azimuth error measured in degree will not increase over the length, but the failure in mm

anyhow, have your personal experience with Axiom or Aquilar?, that you can judge the effects?
or do you share just some personal findings and questions about your general understanding of the tonearm?

 

[Birdwatcher]

No, unfortunately I have no experiences with the axiom, but I am very interested in to own one.
But I would like to understand, why these construction details are really important. I am not a tonearm designer or manufacturer, but very interested in the technology.

 

[shakti]

D Brakemeier has a long history in liking the classic Micro Seiki turntables, like 1500, 5000 and 8000.
Followed by the actual TechDAS AF3 and AF V models.

All of the named turntables have the problem, that tolerances from platter bearing and tonearmbase mounting plates fixing can add up to higher errors in the quality of having parallel surfaces.

As many Acoustical System tonearms are mounted on named Turntables,
the AS tonearms are addressing this issue.

This will help on other turntables as well. Because there are many out there, with similar concepts of what the original Micro Seiki engineers had invented.