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Best Tonearm for warped records?

ejman

ejman

Super Member
The best tonearm I have for tracking a really badly warped record is a Decca International Unipivot. That tonearm sticks to the groove like glue. The other tonearms that I've compared to the Decca for reference - Rega RB 300, Dual 1019 Tonearm, Pioneer PL 112D tonearm. The Decca best these by a long shot. What say you - whats your tonearm tracking champion?
 
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I have used a Graham 2.2 for a long time on my Basis 2001, and it is very good at warps. The unipivot design combined with the outboard stabilizers really allow it to track just about anything.
 
Never had a problem with any of my tables tracking warps. Mostly its in the set-up (VTF, AS, pviot condition (too tight, too loose)).
 
MRL_Audio said:
Some table/arm combinations have problems with minor footfalls... that’s civilized.
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specially old wood structures.
Here in Florida most the houses are over a concrete slab so the floor is solid, except those that chose live close to the train tracks, the vibration when the freight train pass is insane even when all florida is sand.

AG.
 
4-2-7 said:
SME Series V, but the series IV & 309 would also fall into this class based on design. The following vid shows the ability, while the SOTA Star table helps it really is a combination of table, arm and cartridge when it comes to tracking.

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Not to bust your chops but that's not showing the arm track a warped record lol.
 
I, too, owned a Decca International Unipivot and had the same positive experience as you. Better performer than my SME 3009-S2 Improved. To improve on the Decca, I built a linear tracker version of it. I did that by replacing the arm and pivot assembly on a Rabco SL8E with a low mass unipivot design of my own, inspired by the Decca. No side forces and the right amount of viscous damping. It will track anything I throw under it. Do you have the earlier version with the long cable connection under the pillar with the skeleton headshell, or the newer version with the ‘solid’ headshell?

vinylrayk SL8E.JPG
 
vinylrayk said:
I, too, owned a Decca International Unipivot and had the same positive experience as you. Better performer than my SME 3009-S2 Improved. To improve on the Decca, I built a linear tracker version of it. I did that by replacing the arm and pivot assembly on a Rabco SL8E with a low mass unipivot design of my own, inspired by the Decca. No side forces and the right amount of viscous damping. It will track anything I throw under it. Do you have the earlier version with the long cable connection under the pillar with the skeleton headshell, or the newer version with the ‘solid’ headshell?

View attachment 1454077
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Wow, amazing work vinylrayk. That is very creative I bet it sounds amazing. I have the newer version with the solid headhsell and the leveling bubble on top of the headshell. It's mounted on a Lenco L75 and used a ShureM44G tracking at 1.7 grams.
 
I have a couple of JVC and Denon tables with servo arms and electronic VTF, they track very well.
 
Andre Garcia said:
we are civilized enough at home, so we don't need a Sota.
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MRL_Audio said:
Some table/arm combinations have problems with minor footfalls... that’s civilized.
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Andre Garcia said:
specially old wood structures.
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Raised floors and I can actually play records with a house full of people and they can also dance right next to the system.

Grenadeslio said:
Not to bust your chops but that's not showing the arm track a warped record lol.
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Oh you didn't see the warp because of the vacuum platter;)
 
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