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Tiger Paw Javelin Tone Arm

Agree with you about the latest version of Akito, I was slightly surprised by how good it was the other day at one of our dealers who had a Radikal/Kore/Akito/Krystal deck set up. To be honest I was impressed at how good it sounded, not what I was expecting at all!
 
Elephantears said:
This is pedantry, and the car analogy doesn't work (I wish car analogies could be taken out of audio discourse). My point was clear; I can see amazing craftmanship in the Morch DP6: any tonearm at that price point needs to justify itself against an arm with such obvious quality. The craftsmanship of the Javelin is less immediately apparent. I'm not saying its not there, but I'm going to need convincing with a new product, which is why I'm asking questions. Who is the designer; what is their history?
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Is it buggery pedantic! It's about the least pedantic statement here! £1600 on a discretionary purchase is the same as £1800. If you don't like the car analogy, try a handbag. Your wife wants a fancy handbag, it has to be a fancy one and she has £750 to spend. If she has this much to spend on a handbag and she goes out and finds the handbag of her dreams then she does not give a flying doofus whether the thing costs £600 or £800. *It Is Near Enough The Same Number.*
I do not agree that the Morch tonearm "is of obvious quality". It's black and shiny with bits of acrylic. It doesn't look like rocket science to me. Nice, for sure, but "obvious quality"? No more so than a Rega RB300. I am far more likely to be impressed by a titanium arm tube, a la Javelin.
 
Oh, and yes, some women's handbags DO cost £750. And plenty more than that too. Just like most women cannot imagine that you or I might spend £2000 on "just a record player".
 
Nero said:
After using the Skale for a while, have you ever tried going back to the original Naim counterweight (large one)? I did and I was quite surprised. I'm running a DV-1T by the way so YMMV
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I do have the heavy Aro counterweight as well the standard and the sKale and I did compare all three and was happy to go wit( the sKale. However, I will admit that I’ve not revisited that comparison recently.
 
Yes, it is echann, complete with the optional additional mass rings for heavier cartridges.
 
Any chance of longer arms? There's a lot of interest from idler fans who have discovered the Aro is better on a Garrard than a Linn.




*Ducks behind sofa :D
 
Garrards like unipivots. Mine does anyway. Also no need to hide behind the fridge, a basic Garrard without modse and in any decent plinth will outperform any lp12 this side of a Cirkus/ Lingo 1 and probably beyond.
 
Certainly an interesting option to look in to it at some point, for what it's worth I like LP12s but they aren't the only way to play a record.
 
I like L.P. 12s too. All are a great way to play records. I just think they have lost their way in recent years re price and value. In the 80s they were expensive but attainable if you saved up. Plug those numbers into an RPI calculator and you get a small fraction of the current price.
 
Even on the used market arm prices are rising and rising driven in part by the eye watering prices mentioned above that Linn now charge for new ones. I purchased a lovely Ittock on this site for about four hundred quid a couple of years ago these now regularly fetch almost between £600 - £700 for nice examples over on eBay.
So if I'm getting it right that these TPA arms are around the £1,500 mark it doesn't seem excessive considering also that an Aro recently sold for around £2,000 on eBay.
 
If you look at the price of top quality tonearms internationally then even 4K (for the Ekos SE) is far from the top dollar.

Apparently I should be receiving a loan sample to try next week and I can't wait!
 
Natara said:
So if I'm getting it right that these TPA arms are around the £1,500 mark it doesn't seem excessive considering also that an Aro recently sold for around £2,000 on eBay.
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If the Javelin sounds better than my ARO, I can flog the latter for £2K & have £400 to put towards a Chord Music interconnect. Result!
 
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The only thing is if the Javelin is demonstrably better than the Aro, Aro's will no longer fetch 2K or even close to £1800.
 
Suffolk Tony said:
If the Javelin sounds better than my ARO, I can flog the latter for £2K & have £400 to put towards a Chord Music interconnect. Result!
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I suppose one things for sure - it will sound different. Next time I'm passing Leicester, I'll drop in for a chat, but I don't know about you, but I'm feeling a bit puzzled about the project. Yes, the ARO is obsolete, and I'm sure there are lots of ways of changing (sorry, 'improving') the sound, but why start with a copy of the original and go from there? Is there a basic acceptance that Guy Lamotte nailed it? For sure, the ARO is not the prettiest unipivot in the world, but I always put that down to Naim's mechanical engineering ability at the time. So, an opportunity to make something really different is missed IMO, but it does kind of look like there's some piggy-backing going on..
This is not a criticism of the Javelin (but why make a pun on 'arrow'? And yes, I know Nima is an anagram of Naim) which looks to be a really well engineered solution, with some nice bells and whistles missing from the original ARO like arm lift and adjustments, but that stuff doesn't matter to me anyway. I even like the ARO plug on the armboard.

I tried the sKale when it came out and fitted it to my ARO. But over time (probably due to the vibration in the arm), I found it slowly rotated on the shaft, putting the azimuth out. While fixing this, I went back to my original heavy weight, and yes it was different, but I found I preferred it after all. A matter of taste I suppose, and since then, I've stuck with the original. If it ain't broke, don't mess with it.

I have an open mind about it, and of course, I'd love to try it - it's what our hobby is about. I'll have to wait for the ARO Keel version though.
 
Nero said:
I suppose one things for sure - it will sound different. Next time I'm passing Leicester, I'll drop in for a chat, but I don't know about you, but I'm feeling a bit puzzled about the project. Yes, the ARO is obsolete, and I'm sure there are lots of ways of changing (sorry, 'improving') the sound, but why start with a copy of the original and go from there? Is there a basic acceptance that Guy Lamotte nailed it? For sure, the ARO is not the prettiest unipivot in the world, but I always put that down to Naim's mechanical engineering ability at the time. So, an opportunity to make something really different is missed IMO, but it does kind of look like there's some piggy-backing going on..
This is not a criticism of the Javelin (but why make a pun on 'arrow'? And yes, I know Nima is an anagram of Naim) which looks to be a really well engineered solution, with some nice bells and whistles missing from the original ARO like arm lift and adjustments, but that stuff doesn't matter to me anyway. I even like the ARO plug on the armboard.

I tried the sKale when it came out and fitted it to my ARO. But over time (probably due to the vibration in the arm), I found it slowly rotated on the shaft, putting the azimuth out. While fixing this, I went back to my original heavy weight, and yes it was different, but I found I preferred it after all. A matter of taste I suppose, and since then, I've stuck with the original. If it ain't broke, don't mess with it.

I have an open mind about it, and of course, I'd love to try it - it's what our hobby is about. I'll have to wait for the ARO Keel version though.
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I was being a bit flippant Nero. I love my ARO, and really have no immediate plans to change it for anything else. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - I rather like the looks of the ARO, it has a certain industrial, purposeful look about it. I do agree, the ability to easily unplug the arm is a very handy feature, especially if you've friends with AROs who happen to have different cartridges. Reading your post has made me check on my sKale, but it doesn't appear to have moved since I installed it. Maybe I should try the original heavy Naim counterweight again at some stage.

Unless I hear very glowing reports from trusted sources about the Javelin in comparison to the ARO, I won't be trying one anytime soon, but well done & good luck to Tiger Paw.
 
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