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S-shaped arm vs linear tracker vs straight arm?

The Mayware Formula IV is just a wonderful arm. Wish I still had one, but they have suffered from the same run up in prices that all arms have seen. At least they deserve it. You should get it going - your ears will thank you.
I wasn't sure exactly what you meant by the SME mount being a very bad design, so didn't respond directly to it. I sort of assume you mean that the bayonet isn't rigid enough, but one of the reasons for the straight arm headshells you hold in even less high regard is greater rigidity. Though they don't look that rigid, I believe they manage to be more so than the S arm bayonet.
 
Nat said:
one of the reasons for the straight arm headshells you hold in even less high regard is greater rigidity
Click to expand...
I can't grasp where our disagreements arise. For example: "straight arm headshells you hold in even less high regard"

I never said that. This is what I said — this is all I said:

"Many of the Japanese companies ... adopted straight arms with removable h'shells, where the offset angle was designed into the h'shell. But they never agreed to a standard, so if you change cartridges often you need to acquire numerous h'shells that fit one arm and that arm only."

"They never agreed to a standard" — that's all I said. Nothing to indicate I held them in lower regard.

All of them were better than the SME — but not interchangeable. SME finally designed a good headshell for the 309 (after sticking most of us with a crappy one) — and charges a fortune for it. They should pay us reparations for their old one (a joke!)

I wonder what I got wrong this time...
 
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Oh dear - not trying to find fault, but I'm a completeist and tend to get too detailed. And perhaps I mixed you up with another poster - someone didn't like straight arms and offset headshells. In my defense, I was responding to a variety of posts, not only yours.
And you did ask for disagreement by slagging SME headshells - I thought I was being helpful.
At any rate, this should be all in fun, disagreements between people who care more about a subject than the average person does. If I have gone over the line, my apologies.
 
Good response Nat. You should be in our country's diplomatic corps, it needs you. No joke.

If you have any appetite for further discussion, I'm thinking of a new thread about removable headshells vs fixed headshells. Maybe you'd like to contribute?
 
Sure. After years of devout allegiance to fixed headshells as more rigid and pure, I've begun to value removable headshells, for the ease they allow in changing cartridges. The appeal of the purist/hairshirt approach is less as you get older and eyesight and manual dexterity start worsening, and as you build up more interesting cartridges that never seem to get listened to because it takes so long to change them out. I used to have only one or two cartridges and a lot more time to kill, but now they seem to be reproducing in the drawer.
 
Maybe the cantilever suspensions aren't collapsed enough. Or there are many jokes about rigid cantilevers. And so on.
 
Wait a minute....Geometry is geometry. No matter what is tracking the rules of geometry apply. How can an "S" arm have less distortion than a straight arm? As long as the needle is positioned into the proper location it will work. Straight or "S" should be the same.
 
If straight arm is short and underhung, and no offset angle, no geometry applies. Straight arms with enough length and offset angles can be aligned properly to a geometry. These are not HipHop oriented. S armed of enough length also align to something. 9" or longer better.
 
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