World Debut: Vertere Reference Tonearm

[garylkoh]

I just checked their website Gary and it only lists audio cables. Am I at the right place? No mention of any tonearm. How much success was had with the 1986 tonearm? Anyone heard of it? How many were sold? Anybody still using it?

As I said, this is a world debut. We only took pictures of the tonearm in the room at CES.

Touraj probably sold a thousand or more of the Roksan Artemiz. I've used one for years..... He's also done 3 or 4 different tonearms since the Artemiz - which was continuously evolved in the 25 years or so he was at Roksan.

 

[microstrip]

Then get the Graham ....

Why? I already have a 2.2 ...

 

[mep]

Why? I already have a 2.2 ...

Some of us are still waiting for the promised disclosure of his stereo system. I for one won't sit on a picket fence waiting for him to share with us the details of his system. If and when he does, I want to see a picture of it as well.

 

[KBK]

Truly Ack It won't end. What technology can be behind a pivoting arm? I mean how many more ways? What is ending slowly is truly innovative products that truly advance the state of music reproduction, The end of truly innovative products that help us enjoy more music rather than pulling more money out of our pockets. We placidly cough more and more money meanwhile...

Then again in a world of speaker Cables for $50,000 why not?

cough cough.....

 

[audioarcher]

Mep,

You can find information about the Artemiz at the vinylengine site

http://www.vinylengine.com/library/roksan/artemiz.shtml

I have contributed with several brochures and manuals to this site and any analog lover having a missing one should do it also, it is of great help for anyone getting a tonearm without papers!

Unhappily I do not own one Artemiz and the appearance of the Vertere will probably rise the prices on the used market.

I believe you can still buy the Artemiz new for around $3500.

 

[KBK]

Gary-Are you at liberty to disclose where and how these tonearms are made? If this arm retails for $35K via a dealer network (and does he have one or is he selling this arm direct?), that means the dealer is paying $17.5K for this arm which means he has to have less than $8K in the arm to make a decent profit.

I have a hard time getting past companies like SME that have been designing and building tonearms for longer than some of us have been alive. They are an aerospace machine shop company with a state-of-the-art machine shop with top notch mechanical engineers and machinists, and yet somehow newbies pop up on the scene and build *giant killer* tonearms the first time out of the box that elude a company like SME. It defies logic in my opinion. Of course I own an SME arm which makes me more than a little prejudiced. but I have to think that a company that has been designing and building tonearms for so many years with a talent pool and machinery that would be the envy of many companies somehow has a leg-up on Ned Newbie who wants to sell one of the most expensive tonearms in the world with their first effort(s).

Aerospace, as a basis, has nothing to do with knowledge of the correct kinds of damping, noise control, signal handling and the associated mechanics thereof.

This is no slight against SME, it is just that the word Aerospace has no inherent involvement in the requisite subjects at hand.

IIRC, as a not quite relevant comparative for the purposes of illustration....in the earlier days, the carbon fiber suspension arms for Ferrari formula 1 cars was made by Campagnolo. A bicycle component manufacturer, who has extensive real world experience in the problems the components under stress ---have. And that they can build to a level that is correct for Ferrari on their F-1 cars.

Which brings us to the point that: There are tiny little hole-in-the-wall shops in Italy, that can outclass Campagnolo.

 

[Bruce B]

is that a 'first impression'?

according to the unspoken laws of audio politics, you know very well Gary is going to praise anything he is displaying in his room. I had to.....

 

[A.wayne]

@ KBK,

Actually all original formula 1 carbon parts was made by Hercules, right here in good Ole USA, a lot of F1 technology is from american Aerospace , et al ...

 

[KBK]

@ KBK,

Actually all original formula 1 carbon parts was made by Hercules, right here in good Ole USA, a lot of F1 technology is from american Aerospace , et al ...

Well, .... they did it for someone, at one time. Perhaps my memory is faulty on that one. ye olde' theory vs practice and experience. SME has all, so I'm not invoking slight against them, no. it is just that aerospace as a word has nothing to do with it. I should also say that I'm not accusing the poster of meaning what I'm saying, either. As in end the argument, don't prolong it with further poor communication.

Too bad. Makes for boring forums.

For example, the idea of coming out of 'nowhere'. My friend might decide to 'come out of nowhere' in the world of audio acoustics. A part of his history, is doing the acoustics, at last tally, for ~$3B worth of studio production. Never mind the permanent installs. To the audio world, he would be nobody.

 

[mep]

Aerospace, as a basis, has nothing to do with knowledge of the correct kinds of damping, noise control, signal handling and the associated mechanics thereof.

This is no slight against SME, it is just that the word Aerospace has no inherent involvement in the requisite subjects at hand.

IIRC, as a not quite relevant comparative for the purposes of illustration....in the earlier days, the carbon fiber suspension arms for Ferrari formula 1 cars was made by Campagnolo. A bicycle component manufacturer. who has extensive real world experience in the problems components under stress ---have. And that they can build to a level that is correct for Ferrari on their F-1 cars.

Which brings us to the point that: There are tiny little hole-in-the-wall shops in Italy, that can outclass Campagnolo.

I understand what you are saying, but there is a very long history at SME of designing and building world-class tonearms. They have the in-house expertise and facilities to pull it off and they have been doing so for many years. The SME V was a standard for many years and is still in production. Some of their earlier tonearms are still highly thought of and in demand on the used market. I love my SME 312s and think it is one of the best bargains in high-end audio for high-performance 12" arms.

 

[ack]

I also asked Touraj how a tonearm can cost $35k, but after listening to it and him explaining the technology that has gone in, I believe him when he says that it can't be made any cheaper.

OK so what IS the technology? You did such a good job detailing the TechDAS technical virtues that you probably owe it a good complementary description of this arm...

 

[audioarcher]

according to the unspoken laws of audio politics, you know very well Gary is going to praise anything he is displaying in his room.

Yes. It would be political suicide to do otherwise. It is also an unspoken rule to not speak ill of the competition in public. Although some have a hard time with that one.

 

[KBK]

Yes. It would be political suicide to do otherwise. It is also an unspoken rule to not speak ill of the competition in public. Although some have a hard time with that one.

The most well thought of manufacturers take that further. They don't speak ill of competition in private either.

 

[flez007]

$35K ??!!! - we are nothing...... , I thought mine was expensive at $3.5K !!!!

 

[garylkoh]

OK so what IS the technology? You did such a good job detailing the TechDAS technical virtues that you probably owe it a good complementary description of this arm...

That's because I had the time to quiz the engineers, and I helped write the English version of the brochure. This arm I only saw for the first time on Sunday. I'm quizzing Touraj, but he's a bit cagey about some of the things that he's incorporated. He spoke to Robert Harley for much longer than he did me.

I know a couple of things - the tonearm is designed for the characteristics of the grooves of an LP. The bass is mono and hence cut horizontally. The high frequencies are stereo, hence the motion of the stylus in vertical. So, the tonearm has two different geometries - a shorter length and hence lower effective mass for horizontal, and a longer length and higher effective mass vertically.

This gives the tonearm a higher resonance frequency horizontally and a lower resonance frequency vertically. The result to my ears is that bass is tighter, better defined and more dynamic, but with no loss of clarity, air and shimmer in the higher frequencies.

Here's a picture of the man reading WBF and going WTF?

 

[asiufy]

Hey, we went "WTF?" first when we read the price
It'd be great if he could post a quick description of the tonearm. Isn't there any literature available in the room?



alexandre

 

[garylkoh]

I went WTF too when I heard the price.

There's absolutely NO information available. He hasn't written any literature yet, and there are still a couple more decisions to make that he hasn't settled on yet.

Here's a picture of the counterweight. It's supposedly more intelligent than the intelligent counterweight of the Artemiz.



It's slightly decoupled, hung on two very high quality very small bearings so that any vertical movement of the arm due to warps etc. are accommodated. When the arm swings up, the counterweight swings back, and reduces VTF. When the arm swings down, the counterweight swings forward, and increases VTF. You can read all about the nutty Roksan Intelligent Counterweight online - all I know is that it works for me.

 

[DaveyF]

Since we're still talking about the price of this arm, it would seem to me that Touraj knows something that we don't...i.e. where his market is going to come from for his product. In which case, I say more power to him; OTOH, I still don't understand why only $35K and not considerably more....I mean Touraj, you sure the market wouldn't allow for $75K or even $100K or ??

 

[garylkoh]

He didn't build it to a target price. It just ended up at that price. He wouldn't give us a price until last Friday (2 days before the show) as he didn't have his cost on the last part. Knowing Touraj, once this is stable, he will see where he can shave cost off and make a cheaper one.

When he was Roksan, he designed and launched the Artemiz first, and after a few years, launched the cheaper Tabriz.

 

[Shaffer]

Hi

Where will this stop? Really? Where? Then again $35,000 for a tonearm is not that much if you consider that there is a TT out there that would cost $650,000
Where does it end? Do we really think this can go on for a long time? Do we really? Of course everybody will say that it sounds good ... Better than all the other arms ... Progress? new Paradigm? I will stop there terms that I usually don;t use are the only ones that keep on coming to mind .. Out but lurking.

I dropped out of audio about 10 years ago, to return this last summer. Last I knew, a pair of Spendor S100s sold for ~$3500. Now they're, what, ~$12,000? Can't imagine they sound any less than than Marlon Brando's voice as the Godfather. When I sold gear in the late-90s, a CAT was the most expensive preamp in the store and a pair of Audio Physic Virgos (S'phile Class A) sold for ~$5500. The sticker shock of today's pricing is yet to wear off.

As for the $35K arm, well, why not? It's a free market. We don't have to buy it, not as if I personally ever could. At the same time, we don't have to accept the pricing as a sonic determinate. Meaning, this arm shouldn't necessarily be taken more seriously than, say, a Graham solely due to its positioning. There's a conquest buyer for everything. It's a nice carrot.