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Is this the best tonearm in the world?

i assume you can 3D print something similar for a few % of the cost and 97% of performance.

tonearms are the most boring audio topic, coming close to cables, cable lifters, connectors and similar

there's a plenty of tonearms of sufficient quality to make pickups show what they can really do.
 
I don't agree that tonearms are boring, from personal experience with Ittoks to Kuzma four points, I have found removing any items, such as lifting and damping equipment, from the arm improves the sound. This tells me that resonance is a negative factor. I assume that the arm in question is a unipivot, which has it's own unique problems.
 
I quite like the arm. The problem is I have to buy that hideous deck and console to get one.
 
Alex S said:
I quite like the arm. The problem is I have to buy that hideous deck and console to get one.
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The deck/console reminds me of the thingy on Event Horizon - I'd be worried an eyeless Sam Neill will appear from the shadows after a lengthy listening session.
 
norliss said:
It looks like a piece of Meccano. I'm sure it's good but I'm also sure you could get something 95% as good for a fraction of the price.
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It is easy to write something like that, but what makes you sure? Could you do it if you had to, or do you know someone who might be able to? Anyhow, since we are unable to define 95% it is a moot point.
I probably have one advantage over you - at a Lenco meeting in Berlin a couple of years ago Frank presented such an arm on one of his turntables, and we could listen to it for a few days. There was a Supatrac as well, but in another room, with another turntable, cartridge and speakers, so a direct comparison was not possible, but to me Frank's arm sounded better.
 
I can appreciate the design and engineering in that arm, if not its looks, but that's OMA all over. Best tonearm in the world, though? I'll stick to battleship Japanese arms, thanks.

Nice Analog Relax cartridge fitted for this video - a slightly unfortunately named brand, perhaps.
 
The Rega lift/lower fits right in.

I think Frank Schroeder is a member here, I don't suppose he'll comment. Personally I'm not quite sure intuitively about the 'space frame' arm tube, it may be a necessary consequence of the manufacturing process. I have an aesthetic preference for what SME have done with the arm on the 60.
 
The phrase '3D printing' is so corrupted these days that one could say that the arm IS printed, so comments about printing it instead are rather erroneous. Certainly you could change the material and make it for ~95% of the price, but then again and looking at it with the experience I have, I have no doubt it could a) be cast and b) be machined from solid. It appears to me that Frank has, rather like celebrity architects, read about a new and expensive manufacturing method and has chosen this client to test it out for him.

I like the counterweight, some innovation there, but do some FEA and you'll almost certainly remove material - it's not doing anything structural being on the neutral axis.

Of course it may be the best tonearm in the world, I haven't heard it, but the 'engineering' I would describe as bling.

CHE
 
A tonearm is a beam - if you want it super stiff, you make it stiff. The stiffest beams are trusses. The OMA arm is a truss. Makes sense to me.

I think the bearing is more important than the stiffness of the structure between the bearing and the cartridge. I have never been a fan of unipivots or bearingless arms like the well tempered.
 
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