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Straight Arm Wear!

C

coppercitymt

New Member
Greetings I am getting a Stanton T55 USB turntable to hook up to my PC and PC speakers because I lack a home stereo system. I have read online that a straight arm wears the vinyl more then a "S" arm, unless you angle the cart. in the head-shell.

What's the right angle to set that at, and will that work or dose an straight arm really wear that much faster?
 
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ccm: Problem is that with that T55 you're basically getting a pseudo-scratch-artist-dj-turntable with pretty short, straight arm with non-angled headshell. An arm like that lacks the optimised geometry for hifi use and hence tracking error angles will be rather high. Thus it only makes sense to use cartridges with concial/spherical needle tip on such an arm - 'cause more sophisticated tip shapes wouldn't be correctly oriented there for most of the time, and that might indeed cause increased wear. But even with a spherical/conical needle you'll still have a higher distortion than usual due to the subobtimal geometry...

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini
 
A proper straight arm looks something like this:

adc_1600.jpg


Notice the cartridge end is angled relative to the arm tube. Basically the idea is to put the stylus more in line with the grooves on the record so it doesn't shred it. If the cartridge didn't have that angle, it would be like going down the road sideways. Also notice the arm is a lot longer than your Stanton table. This is to make sure the cartridge geometry is as correct as possible as it tracks across the record.

The S arm angles the cartridge in a similar manner. It really doesn't have much to do with the specific shape of the arm as it does with the angle of the cartridge.

Anyway, long and short of it, your T55 is really not a good audio turntable. My personal advice would be to see if you can find an inexpensive Technics or something similar used, buy a cheap phono pre-amp, and connect that to the line-in on your computer to listen to. You should be able to get something better suited for listening that won't kill your albums for under 100 bucks all-in.
 
One more thing, don't try to angle the cartridge in the headshell to make it pseudo-correct, it will wear even more being such a short arm.


Ben aka MacKat
 
Short straight underhung tonearm on that Stanton. No offset. Cannot be aligned to correct geometry for correct overhang. Conical styli only. Made for rap/hip hop scratch tricks. Not made for sound quality or record life. Even angled.
 
gadget73 said:
A proper straight arm looks something like this:

adc_1600.jpg


Notice the cartridge end is angled relative to the arm tube. Basically the idea is to put the stylus more in line with the grooves on the record so it doesn't shred it. If the cartridge didn't have that angle, it would be like going down the road sideways. Also notice the arm is a lot longer than your Stanton table. This is to make sure the cartridge geometry is as correct as possible as it tracks across the record.

The S arm angles the cartridge in a similar manner. It really doesn't have much to do with the specific shape of the arm as it does with the angle of the cartridge.

Anyway, long and short of it, your T55 is really not a good audio turntable. My personal advice would be to see if you can find an inexpensive Technics or something similar used, buy a cheap phono pre-amp, and connect that to the line-in on your computer to listen to. You should be able to get something better suited for listening that won't kill your albums for under 100 bucks all-in.
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:drool: God that's a orgeous table! what model ADC?
 
jleon92f said:
Hi, I have been playing my albums since the 1960's, they did not wear out yet. I think your safe. My Thorens is one of the tt's I used, straight arm.

Thanks,
John.:music::D
Click to expand...

There's a big difference between the straight arm on a Thorens and the straight arm on the Stanton T.55. The Thorens arm is long enough to provide overhang -- the pivot-to-stylus distance is greater than the pivot-to-spindle distance -- and the headshell mounts at an angle to the arm rather than straight-on. The combination of overhang and offset allows the angular tracking error to be held to a minimum. The Stanton's arm is underhung with a zero offset angle, so its tracking error is high. The OP probably won't see excessive record wear as long as he stays with a spherical stylus, but the sound he gets won't be as clean as it would be with a tonearm that had proper geometry.
 
coppercitymt said:
Greetings I am getting a Stanton T55 USB turntable to hook up to my PC and PC speakers because I lack a home stereo system. I have read online that a straight arm wears the vinyl more then a "S" arm, unless you angle the cart. in the head-shell.

What's the right angle to set that at, and will that work or dose an straight arm really wear that much faster?
Click to expand...

This is simply a bad choice, return it for a refund and get something else like a Denon DP-300F and ART DJ preamp for a 'starter' turntable if new is what you want. The preamp can be plugged into the audio inputs of the computer until you get a proper audio system for it.
 
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OK guys thanks for the feedback, the response seems to be overwhelming, I will return the T55 as soon as it arrives. What about the offerings from Numark like the TT USB turntable "http://www.numark.com/product/ttusb" it has the S shape and is only 99 dollars, I am not looking for Audiophile grade stuff just something to play vinyl that won't eat it at the same time.
 
I, a linear tracker owner, do have a question regarding tone arm bearing angles.

Shouldn't the vertical pivot bearings be at the same angle as the headshell offset to keep the arm from rolling the stylus off vertical on any slight warps in the record? Or, shouldn't A = B in the picture? (This ADC is not.)

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Ed in Tx said:
I, a linear tracker owner, do have a question regarding tone arm bearing angles.

Shouldn't the vertical pivot bearings be at the same angle as the headshell offset to keep the arm from rolling the stylus off vertical on any slight warps in the record? Or, shouldn't A = B in the picture? (This ADC is not.)

attachment.php
Click to expand...

Normally you'd think so, but many good arms came likewise such as the SME, Black Widow, and the Sony PUA-7 to name but a couple examples.
 
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In a perfect world, yes. Most of the time, the minute ups and downs don't really affect it, I don't think.


Ben aka MacKat
 
Thorens, the Black Widow, the SME, and the ADC have correct length and offset and will align correctly. The Numark straight tonearm is also equally garbage and equally bad on record life and tracking. And like the Stanton T55 won't align correctly. Same limitations apply. Avoid under hung, short, straight arms with no offset. They are bad for your record collection you paid good money for. They are aimed at Rap DJ and Scratch DJ types who love ruining their records.
 
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The T50 specs are on VE. If the arms are the same the T55 has an effective tone arm length of 191 mm. Plugging that in to the calculator yields an offset angle of 29* to make Lofgren A. Maybe, just maybe you could get 5* with that head shell so the best alignment is 24* off of Lofgren A which isn't all that good to begin with. Pass with extream prejudice.
 
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