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Is this the best tonearm in the world?

That’s the thing, website here: www.vivaudiolab.com

PS Agreed about Yamaha. I have huge respect for the company. They make superb pianos, guitars, synths, drum kits etc as well as an audio legacy that includes many genuine classics. I have two Yamaha guitars I like a lot. The mere fact they decided to do this is certainly enough for me to want to hear it.
 
ex brickie said:
What is it then @Beobloke
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Sorry! It's a Yamaha GT-5000

The null point is actually in the centre of the record so, strictly speaking it needs double anti-skate, since on the outside of the record it will naturally skate inwards like any normal arm, but on the inside of the record, it wants to skate outwards.

Yamaha actually have used this idea going back to the 1980s when the YSA-2 straight, underhung arm was an option for the original GT-2000. It predates the likes of Vestax and their ASTS straight arm for DJ use by at least 20 years. I also have pictures of Stax and Micro Seiki arms of similar design from around that period, although the latter two never seemed to make it into production.

As well as Yamaha and Viv Labs, the Fidelix 0 SideForce arm and the arm on the new Yuki precision turntable also dispense with any offset. It's very much a Japanese thing, seemingly!

https://exclusive-audio.jp/en/products/0-sideforce
https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/g02031/

As to the GT-5000, it was with me for over a month when I reviewed it. I used an MC cartridge with a MicroLine stylus profile, and threw all sorts of torture and test tracks at it and never heard the slightest hint of mis-tracking or distortion, or saw curls of chewed vinyl spewing off my LPs! It's a truly fabulous sounding deck and has inspired me to get on the waiting list with Hi-Fi Do in Japan for a YSA-2 for my own GT-2000.

Like I said, I don't understand the theory behind it - there was some in the original YSA-2 arm manual but this only available in Japanese and I've never managed to source a proper technical translation. However, the key points seem to focus on anti-skating unbalancing the arm and reducing its stability in the groove, and this resulting in a subjectively more offensive sonic effect than any tracking error.
 
One day I might just try and run my Reference with under hang and zero offset to hear if there are gains worth the theoretical disadvantages. Looks like the cartridge carrier will just about rotate far enough before the cartridge bolt heads hit the limits of the cutouts. Current decks will leave the counterweight too vulnerable to knocks when putting the cover on but I have a Lenco in the pipeline and haven’t ordered the plinth material yet, still deciding whether to go PTP.
 
Ooooh @Beobloke - that does seem rather gorgeous! I heard the NS-5000 and they were superb too. Just a matching Yam in between - it would look sublime if nothing else!
 
The skating force occurs because of overhang/offset. If you're pulling a straight cartridge nearly straight away from the pivot without much overhang, there's not much skating force, and therefore not much need for anti-skate. Phase distortion will start to grow at the extremes, but through most of the play area it's probably fairly negligible.

I'm always banging on about how anti-skate force is always wrong, because the actual drag is highly signal dependent. What that means is that applied constant anti-skate is a kind of distortion, pushing on the outer groove wall by a varying error during quiet passages and failing properly to oppose the offset drag reaction at the inner groove wall by a variable margin when things get noisy. I've taken to pointing out that optimum constant anti-skate is the one which keeps your cantilever unbent after a thousand hours.

The stylus is so small that actual stylus-groove alignment phase shifts probably have a small effect. I don't know if I can hear very fine adjustments to alignment. I certainly can't distinguish when the arm reaches the null points. Add in the manufacturing variations, and most of us are probably only getting within five or ten degrees of optimum when we align. On a typical LP with a straight (non-offset) arm we're looking at -9º to +9º. Throw in the absence of any need for an anti-skate force, and performance is probably much closer to an offset arm than you might expect.

One problem for scratch DJs is that when you reverse the platter, the skate force is outwards, so now your anti-skate mechanism is actually making things worse, not better. I can see why DJs would like a straight arm - it should be pretty similar in both directions, and certainly way better going backwards than a typical offset arm.
 
Not too expensive all things considered, the arm isn't that dear either compared with the Viv Labs options.

Back to the OP, I'd like to hear that combo, despite the challenging aesthetics and silly £££.
 
Tony L said:
The anti-skating thing confused me as I couldn’t see why it wasn’t needed, but this kind of arm doesn’t ever seem to have it.

As I understand it the zero offset approach started in the DJ world as apparently it’s harder to yeet the cartridge right out of the groove when aggressively back-cueing or scratching. I was surprised to see a highly credible, traditional and clearly engineering-led company such as Yamaha adopting it on high-end home audio kit. I don’t understand it. I know there has been another high-end audiophile arm from Japan built on similar principles/lack thereof. Can’t remember the name but it is obviously straight and may even be a unipivot.



Yikes. That’s crunchy.
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I drew it and had a look, the arm is 233mm long, if you mount it 250mm from the centre you get 10 degrees error at outer and inner, which is what Yamaha admit. For the outer half of the playable area the skating will be conventional, a twist toward the centre, for the other half it will be reversed, towards the outside. There will be one null tracking error, at which point no antiskate would be required. I think the amount of compensation is less than a conventional system, but it's so variable that it's impractical to achieve. I suppose the variation from out to in means the overall load on the cartidige over time is neutral.

I don't see any good argument for this design, but it's not quite as bad as you might first think.
 
Some advocates of 12-inch offset arms say they don't need applied anti-skate at all. Rega and Linn arms are offset by 23⁰-24⁰, so at those offset/overhang values the skating force is significant. At plus 9⁰ to -9⁰ it's much smaller. Cos(9⁰) is 0.99 whereas cos(24⁰) is 0.91.

If your null point is somewhere near the middle of play area, then your cartridge spends as much time pressing to one side as the other, so you can expect even diamond wear and a perennial straight cantilever. There's a lot to be said for it.
 
Nero said:
Shirley the reason people ‘prefer’ 12” arms is the (reduced) tracking error.
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This may be the prime mover, but aesthetically, the 12" arm just looks the business comparably. However, having 2 of them, another reason is tactility; so much easier to handle in all respects; cueing (don't know why though), lift off and return. Generally, the longer length produces a heavier eff, mass, which must be good for most m/coils.

Apropos the reduced tracing error, Glanz stainless steel tonearms don't have bias correction (at least on the 12") as they consider it unnecessary. I know the tracing error difference between, say, 9" and 12" is very small, but it is, i.m.o., significant sonically, allowing for a more surefooted presentation. After having many 9" arms up to the Five, I'd never revert. Mind you, I was a student in 1970 with an SME 3012 (+ V15), but in those days it was probably more bling than better.

I'm confused by the terminology of TRACKING error, which I understood to refer to how the cart./stylus tracks the groove, and TRACING error,; that deviation from the optimal path of a pivoted arm. Already in this thread these terms seem to have been confused, if in fact they are not transferable. Someone put me right, please.
 
G T Audio said:
It's what they call marketing, as you will never forget it. All of OMA products are like this. Enough people have reported how good OMA products sound and I for one would love to hear one of their systems. Their approach reminds me of Yamamura Churchill...
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OMA had a very entertaining system at Munich last year, including that arm and turntable, console table, and built in phono stage. I found it very enjoyable. Not necessarily totally natural or totally coherent, but certainly far more enjoyable to sit and listen to for a period of time than many of the systems there.

I like what they are doing in terms of shaking the tree, broadening interest in audio, take risks and do something different.

The reviews of the turntable and arm do suggest it also delivers on performance.
 
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Nero said:
Shirley the reason people ‘prefer’ 12” arms is the (reduced) tracking error.
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Mike Reed said:
Apropos the reduced tracing error, Glanz stainless steel tonearms don't have bias correction (at least on the 12") as they consider it unnecessary. I know the tracing error difference between, say, 9" and 12" is very small, but it is, i.m.o., significant sonically, allowing for a more surefooted presentation. After having many 9" arms up to the Five, I'd never revert. Mind you, I was a student in 1970 with an SME 3012 (+ V15), but in those days it was probably more bling than better.
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Not so, Mike. All Glanz arms are fitted with bias mechanisms - lever/weight in the case of the all-stainless steel models. Mr Hamada, the maker of Glanz arms, does recommend removing the bias mechanism altogether from those top stainless arms for best sound reproduction. I know where he's coming from but in practice I've always found that a small amount of compensation is beneficial.

Wallytools did some interesting videos on anti-skating, and the last one in that series seems to be indicating that the skating force, as we usually assume it to be, is a result of overhang. So, maybe an underhung arm like Adam's Yamaha, or a Viv Labs Float, should not need any compensation force. Ultimately, of course, the proof of the pudding is in the listening, and these arms that gleefully fly in the face of accepted geometric wisdom do apparently sound great.

 
The skating force arises when the vector of drag on the cartridge does not pass through the pivot, but instead passes some distance to its side, constituting a torque on the arm bearing. For equal net force on each side of the cartridge, a counter-torque is required. But the amount of drag is actually signal-dependent, so the correct instantaneous balancing force would ideally vary with signal power. I've never seen an anti-skate mechanism which achieves, or even attempts to do that, so like a stopped clock, applied anti-skate force is only very occasionally correct. The best you can hope for is an anti-skate force which is roughly right on average, so that your stylus wears equally at the left and right contact areas.

While tangential arms don't suffer from this offset/overhang compromise, pivot arms can still sound pretty good and tangential arms have their own set of compromises.

Long pivot arms mitigate the problem, but exacerbate anither set of problems to do with mass, rigidity and resonance.

Personally, I think the problems of bearings discussed earlier in this thread are at least as important, which is why I produce an arm with an innovative bearing which you can order at any length.
 
Shuggie said:
Not so, Mike. All Glanz arms are fitted with bias mechanisms - lever/weight in the case of the all-stainless steel models. Mr Hamada, the maker of Glanz arms, does recommend removing the bias mechanism altogether from those top stainless arms for best sound reproduction.
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Ah! Got my info. skewed, but 12" arms don't require much if any antiskate, depending on the cart. in some cases, and interestingly, as Sonddek says, the signal. Best to under bias than over with coils, i.m.o.
 
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