Let’s take this off line and I will explain to you in precise steps why I posted what I did...
Fremer says 9" arms are inherently superior?
- Thread starter Fsonicsmith
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Let’s take this off line and I will explain to you in precise steps why I posted what I did...
Nice to know that someone on this thread wants to talk about the OP's original post
You may laugh when I say this, but maybe we are approaching all of this in isolation. Certain carts/arm/TT combos may well work much better with one or the other type of arm. As to the integrated approach consider an EMT 950 that works as a whole - arm/suspension/cart all together. Another example some may well poo poo are the B and O Beograms - the carts were designed ground up for the parallel tracking arms that adorn the likes of the 4000 and 4002.
I am not qualified to discuss the Pseudoscience, let alone the science in great critical detail - it may just be a case of the rather simplistic cliche 'trust your ears' as the final arbiter, and use what ought to match up.
BTW IMHO it is a a real shame that this post is becoming bitter - especially given that the topic is very interesting. Can I just add that early on in my WBF membership I denigrated into such behaviour with another member, which I was rightly remonstrated for. There are some very intelligent people posting here with a real view of enjoying the banter, discussion, and information they can share with others - I think this speaks for the majority of people. I for one work in an environment that is full of arguments (I am a Solicitor Advocate) and can say that the best way forward is to be constructive and not so vicious.
I have Basis Superarm 9
Basis always did Vector and Superarm 9”
I saw on web Basis is doing a Superarm 12,12”
I ask my friend Italian distributor and told me that Basis told 9” is better but do 12” because market ask
Then will be better I have no idea
Basis always did Vector and Superarm 9”
I saw on web Basis is doing a Superarm 12,12”
I ask my friend Italian distributor and told me that Basis told 9” is better but do 12” because market ask
Then will be better I have no idea
I know that Forum well and have had 3 temp bans over the past two years or so...
Badges of honor!!
I mentioned moment of inertia and how it can change as the arm's counterweight is moved toward or away from the arm's pivot point. So, moment of inertia is not only a result of an arm's effective length. On my SME arm, I can play with moment of inertia by experimenting with the ratio of static and dynamic balance and how many extra weights I add to the counterweight assembly. It is a very flexible system.
Bingo. While we all want to believe that the manufacturers of our favorite tonearm...or any phono gear for that matter....are virtuous to a fault, that simply is not the case. They are businesspeople with bills to pay, research to support and must do so in a niche market where opportunities to sell are limited. Part of the trick to make money is to give the people what they want. Clearly there are some longer arms that when combined with synergetic cartridges and tt will sound fantastic. The buying public then begins to clamor for the next Holy Grail, likely because the word has been spread by glowing product review. So manufacturers must and will give the buying public what they want. Is it always as good as claimed? Maybe not, maybe yes, depends on where the manufacturer is in his state of the art but venture to guess that the pressure to supply a similar Holy Grail cannot be ignored if the desire is to stay in business.
Ironically, in this case the reviewer didn't recommend drinking the juice and had gone against the grain. You can see the reaction in this thread, it is almost like people are upset because they feel they are afraid that they have been duped, not by a review which may often be the case but by a manufacturer that had sold them what they asked for, whether it was beneficial or not (and at a higher price!!). And I am in no way suggesting the MF was in the business of duping readers...but as with anything, there are some who have.
It is my opinion that in the world of high end audio, you have to do your homework and that is what I see at WBF, a great source of experience and knowledge. In the case of longer tonearms, I also think there has been too much emphasis placed on the virtues of tracking error and little counterbalance from the moment of inertia arguments/solutions. Perhaps the technology has matured but by the reactions I have seen in this thread, I think there is still a lot of doubt amongst you concerning the true effectiveness of long arms. Time will tell...
Yes, but the question is how moment of inertia affects tonearm performance. The total moment of inertia is the sum off all parts in the tonearm - a longer tonearm will have a higher moment of inertia, you can not "neutralize" it. Once it is there you must live with it, there are no parts you can add to create a negative moment of inertia to counterbalance it.
I am disappointed that the thread degenerated and we lost track of the very interesting original post. The issues of moment of inertia, rigidity, and perhaps to a lesser extent, tracking error and anti skate forces are all worthy of discussion to better understand their relative effect on what is a complex system.
Mr. Fremer shared his view that he prefers 9" arms because they sound better to him. He supported this preference by mentioning technical reasons why a shorter arm might sound better and by referencing comments made by tonearm designers. I happen to agree with Davey that Fremer's own comment about manufacturer's telling him privately, "off the record", that they are only producing longer arms because of customer demand raises all sorts of questions. Would not some manufacturers want to design a product that might improve performance? Why is there customer demand for longer arms, if not for improved performance? Might they not sound better if properly designed? If the customers want the product, and the manufactures can make money selling it to them, everyone wins.
We do not actually know if the designers think the longer arms perform better or worse. We do know that the longer arms usually cost more. We also know that some customers prefer the longer arms for a variety of reasons, and they buy them. Once one manufacturer started to build londer arms, and people bought them, it seems that other manufacturers noticed a new market or trend and started to produce their own longer arms. DDK and I have actually done direct comparisons between arms of the same design and of different lengths. Our listening experience does not match Mr. Fremer's personal preference and what he tells us that the manufacturers tell him privately. I am left to wonder why this is the case.
I tried to make the point that the market will decide in the end because people will hear the longer arms and decide whether or not they want to buy them. I do not see why this issue led to such controversy. However, I do have some real questions for Mr. Fremer. I had hoped he would respond to some of my posts, specifically his own review of the SME 312S arm, in which he said that the 12" variant has all of the theoretical benefits of the longer arm, and none of the disadvantages (meaning less rigidity and greater moment of inertia). This seems at odds with his preference for 9" arms. I wish he had addressed this in the thread.
I presume he must have been thinking about the 9" SME arm when he wrote the review about the 12" arm. He did not do a direct comparison between the arms, which is also disappointing, and makes his position about arm length less convincing. It is obvious that there are technical differences between arms of the same design but of different lengths. A direct listening test would be the best way to know if the technical differences matter in the end. The reader would be better served with a report of a direct listening comparison. Mr. Fremer admits he is not an engineer, but a listener. His value as a reviewer is his sharing of his listening impressions. I enjoy reading them.
In the end, I think Mr. Fremer prefers the 9" SAT arm to all other arms he has heard. I understand that and would like to hear that arm one day. The controversy results from the idea that 9" arms are inherently better. He did not state that and he made this point repeatedly on this thread. His position would be much stronger, in my opinion, if it were supported by a series of direct listening comparisons between multiple 9" and 12' variants of the same arm design. This idea was notably absent from his many posts. I hope that some day he is able to directly compare the 9" and 12" SAT arms. He will then be able to share a new perspective based on broader experience. I also wish that he had not commented on what manufacturer's told him "off the record" because it can be interpreted as a support of his preference for 9" arms and it raises questions for those who happen to have directly compared the different arms and prefer the longer ones.
I think it is very difficult to design a longer arm that performs as well as a shorter arm, in terms of rigidity and moment of inertia. It requires added design time, new production challenges, and greater cost. Marc Gomez and hte engineers at SME (among others) have addressed these challenges. Simply adding 3" to the arm wand is a simple solution which probably results in poorer performance. Is this the simple truth that Mr. Fremer was writing about? Who knows? I wish he had stayed around and been willing to really get into this discussion and share his experience.
Mr. Fremer shared his view that he prefers 9" arms because they sound better to him. He supported this preference by mentioning technical reasons why a shorter arm might sound better and by referencing comments made by tonearm designers. I happen to agree with Davey that Fremer's own comment about manufacturer's telling him privately, "off the record", that they are only producing longer arms because of customer demand raises all sorts of questions. Would not some manufacturers want to design a product that might improve performance? Why is there customer demand for longer arms, if not for improved performance? Might they not sound better if properly designed? If the customers want the product, and the manufactures can make money selling it to them, everyone wins.
We do not actually know if the designers think the longer arms perform better or worse. We do know that the longer arms usually cost more. We also know that some customers prefer the longer arms for a variety of reasons, and they buy them. Once one manufacturer started to build londer arms, and people bought them, it seems that other manufacturers noticed a new market or trend and started to produce their own longer arms. DDK and I have actually done direct comparisons between arms of the same design and of different lengths. Our listening experience does not match Mr. Fremer's personal preference and what he tells us that the manufacturers tell him privately. I am left to wonder why this is the case.
I tried to make the point that the market will decide in the end because people will hear the longer arms and decide whether or not they want to buy them. I do not see why this issue led to such controversy. However, I do have some real questions for Mr. Fremer. I had hoped he would respond to some of my posts, specifically his own review of the SME 312S arm, in which he said that the 12" variant has all of the theoretical benefits of the longer arm, and none of the disadvantages (meaning less rigidity and greater moment of inertia). This seems at odds with his preference for 9" arms. I wish he had addressed this in the thread.
I presume he must have been thinking about the 9" SME arm when he wrote the review about the 12" arm. He did not do a direct comparison between the arms, which is also disappointing, and makes his position about arm length less convincing. It is obvious that there are technical differences between arms of the same design but of different lengths. A direct listening test would be the best way to know if the technical differences matter in the end. The reader would be better served with a report of a direct listening comparison. Mr. Fremer admits he is not an engineer, but a listener. His value as a reviewer is his sharing of his listening impressions. I enjoy reading them.
In the end, I think Mr. Fremer prefers the 9" SAT arm to all other arms he has heard. I understand that and would like to hear that arm one day. The controversy results from the idea that 9" arms are inherently better. He did not state that and he made this point repeatedly on this thread. His position would be much stronger, in my opinion, if it were supported by a series of direct listening comparisons between multiple 9" and 12' variants of the same arm design. This idea was notably absent from his many posts. I hope that some day he is able to directly compare the 9" and 12" SAT arms. He will then be able to share a new perspective based on broader experience. I also wish that he had not commented on what manufacturer's told him "off the record" because it can be interpreted as a support of his preference for 9" arms and it raises questions for those who happen to have directly compared the different arms and prefer the longer ones.
I think it is very difficult to design a longer arm that performs as well as a shorter arm, in terms of rigidity and moment of inertia. It requires added design time, new production challenges, and greater cost. Marc Gomez and hte engineers at SME (among others) have addressed these challenges. Simply adding 3" to the arm wand is a simple solution which probably results in poorer performance. Is this the simple truth that Mr. Fremer was writing about? Who knows? I wish he had stayed around and been willing to really get into this discussion and share his experience.
I do not think this is always true (bold above). I believe you are ignoring the specific gravity of the arm's materials. See the photo in post #231. New technologies are improving stiffness to weight ratios. This supports the arguement that execution correlates more to performance than length (i.e., now 12" arms can be superior to 9"). If you use Michael's caveat that "all else is held constant" to include materials, manufacturing technique, and design and then I agree with your comment about moment of inertia and also agree with your question about asking whether that matters.
I agree, in general. However, one could design a tonearm of greater length and lighter weight through the use of material research and perhaps construction technique. Thinner wall construction, greater diameter, and lighter material can all be combined for lower weight. But, given those advances, a shorter version can then be made that would be even lighter. It is too bad that Mr. Fremer did not discuss this further.
Absent this discussion is a comparison of different effective mass specifications for different arms. For instance, I asked earlier but perhaps in a different thread, what the effective mass of the 9" SAT arm actually is. Is it possible that it is greater than that of the 12" magnesium SME V-12 arm? If it is greater, than the inertia should be greater. That would be a very interesting thing to learn and discuss. Inertia is but one of the variables in the very complex system of a tonearm design. And depending on the cartridge, lowest effective mass or moment of inertia may not be ideal.
And of course, this all goes back to arm/cartridge matching. Moment of inertia is not everything. Rigidity is another factor. The SAT arm is extremely rigid. Perhaps at some point designers will develop an arm with for all practical purposes is as rigid and light as is practical. Further gains in these two areas may then be superseded by the importance of lower tracking error. I wonder if Marc Gomez studied these very issues in his new designs.
Yes, surely I consider "all else is held constant". Otherwise you could suggest comparing a 12" hollow balsa tonearm with a 9" solid titanium tonearm ...
I agree. This is why the best arms in the future will be of different designs as they get longer and not just have replacement 3" longer armtubes with slightly different offset angles. I remember people complaining that one manufacturer supplied a longer arm tube with the same offset angle as the 9" version of his arm.
It looks like MF absolutely objects to being misquoted, quoted out of context.
A totally reasonable POV.
For him, the thread started skewed, and then ran off the rails completely.
Talk is cheap, accuracy costs.
A totally reasonable POV.
For him, the thread started skewed, and then ran off the rails completely.
Talk is cheap, accuracy costs.
Peter,
My original sentence was written as an answer to your specific comment, admitting "all else is held constant".
I think he just would prefer not to banter with the unwashed audiophile masses around here or any forum other than his own AP Closed forum. The irony ? Without people like us, there would not be a very big audiophile product marketplace and little need for audiophile mags and reviewers.
I think he just would prefer not to banter with the unwashed audiophile masses around here or any forum other than his own AP Closed forum. The irony ? Without people like us, there would not be a very big audiophile product marketplace and little need for audiophile mags and reviewers.
Say it isn't so! I took a bath last month in honor of this thread!!
David has remained quiet, Mike L and Mike F and Mike (Ferrari) too, Gary K, and several more members.
Where are they the real experts, the tonearms designers, the engineers, the scientists in the mastering art of analog music reproduction from turntables using various tonearm lengths?
Where are they the real experts, the tonearms designers, the engineers, the scientists in the mastering art of analog music reproduction from turntables using various tonearm lengths?
I wasn't quiet Bob, I posted my opinion as did M. Fremer what else is there to say? The dick fencing is pointless and a waste of time, not even fun or funny in this instance.
david
True, I remember clearly your post and same for Michael Fremer. You guys say your opinion and don't waste any more time, I like.
Michael did what he had to do, say his mind, and leave this building.
I learned few things in the process; respect the leaders, respect the members, respect the manufacturers, respect the tonearms.
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