A Revolutionary Pivoting Tangential Tone Arm

Would crowd funding be a good option ? You can mass produces non critical parts cheaply (for ex. far east) make critical component in USA, Advertise on various forums, magazines etc. rope in some audio enthusiasts who will support in various ways.
Regards
 
I have always been amused that many, many people buy a SME V for around $5,500 when most people "in the know", know that the Hadcock 242 Silver $1950 is a much more musical arm. The only area where the SME is superior to the Hadcock is in bass slam.

Getting good bass is expensive. I am familiar with the sound of unipivot designs and, yes, they are very musical but in many cases "bass slam" ain't one of their strengths. And people are willing to pay for that one quality. If I can afford an SME V, I would buy it, period.

You are right about studying the sound of competitive products so you can be "getting a leg up on the competition"! In a commercial product, studying science is not enough, unfortunately.
 
Hi,


You may be able to get a ´short teaser´ but very probabely no full review.
Also be prepared to only get a benevolant review, or You can guarantee for at least 2 years of advertisement.
You also won´t get a top notch review in a comparative test against well known brands with a big image or a potent distributor behind.
And finally .... most of the writers have not the slightest (technical) clue what they are writing about.
Nowadays most reviews in german magazines feel like copy and paste from the official flyers.
I can´t recommend them at all ... it´d probabely just a big waste of money for You.

jauu
Calvin

Hello Calvin,

Thank you very much for that information. It seems like a sad state of affairs.

Sincerely,

Ralf
 
Would crowd funding be a good option ? You can mass produces non critical parts cheaply (for ex. far east) make critical component in USA, Advertise on various forums, magazines etc. rope in some audio enthusiasts who will support in various ways.
Regards

Hello Hiten,

I plan to use crowd funding to raise the money to pay for the patent application.

Your other ideas also sound good.

Sincerely,

Ralf
 
Book a small room at munich if you're serious and hire a PR agency for the launch. Otherwise you're doomed to forever be small potatoes. Sadly.

Hello sq225917,

That is very good advice but very much beyond my budget.

I have some other tricks up my sleeve, which I'll try in the next few days.

The responses to my tone arm thread have slowed me down a little. (Not a complaint!)

Sincerely,

Ralf
 
Ultimately regardless of how good your design is, to break into the market & be competitive, retail price will be the key factor. To establish a brand & reputation takes lots of sad to say money that could be put into developing & improving the product instead.

Cheers
 
If it sound as good as it looks, we need it because we need to continue the advance of vinyl listening, Then the question really is how good does it sound, perform & for that you need knowledgeable listening from people with high end vinyl systems. Then we would know if it add anything against to the currently available super arms that are out there. I have some reservations about the design but have absolutely no experience of such an arm, so I am very open minded about it.
Just thinking now, perhaps there is a local audio club in the area it could be trialled at.

Cheers

Hello gigigirl,

Some time ago, i was introduced to an audiophile in Phoenix who has a high end audio system. In the next few weeks, I'll travel down there and install one of my tone arms on his VPI turn table. ( I built all my tone arms in pairs)

About having reservations concerning the design of my tone arm, I know what you mean. If someone else had approached me with my design, I would have had reservations myself. However, it has to be seen in action to dispel those reservations. To that end, I will soon post a video of the arm tracing an LP. you will find it astounding.

Sincerely,

Ralf
 
That’s the issue, will it be rigid and at the same time, friction free today and next year.

There’s a window I’m sure everything comes together, but doing it again and again is the challenge Ralf hasn’t,t seen just yet with quantity and.., shipping thru temperature gradients.

Hope it works out for his considerable efforts and contribution to the fine art of phonograph reproduction

Regards
David
 
But I wonder if the gains of offsetting the tracking distortion will be lost due to the amount of moving parts you have in the headshell area.
I, like many other people, have found that this area has to be rigid to prevent signal nuance loss. It is well know from the past that the SME 3009 fixed headshell arm sound better that the removable headshell version.
Also what is the effective mass of the arm & what cartridge has it been trialed with
Cheers

Hello gigigirl,

Only a series of listening tests will determine as to whether I've done my work well. No potential manufacturer would forego those tests.

The center of gravity of the SME head-shell/cartridge assembly is located well forward of the bayonet joint with the tone arm and I can see how that could possibly cause problems with rigidity. In my tone arm the center of gravity is ~ half-way between the supports.

One of the benefits of tangential tracking that I have not mentioned, is reduced damage to the LP caused by skating forces.

The effective mass of my tone arm in the horizontal plane is 15.71g. and that can be easily varied up or down. The effective mass in the vertical plane is not as easily computed. I understand that my CAD program does that, but I have to learn how to do that.

And finally, the cartridge I am using is a high-end moving iron cartridge loaned to me by a kind American gentleman who asked me to keep his identity to myself.

Sincerely,

Ralf
 
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That’s the issue, will it be rigid and at the same time, friction free today and next year.

There’s a window I’m sure everything comes together, but doing it again and again is the challenge Ralf hasn’t,t seen just yet with quantity and.., shipping thru temperature gradients.

Hope it works out for his considerable efforts and contribution to the fine art of phonograph reproduction

Regards
David

Hello AVWERK,

Thank you for your post.
My tone arm pivots on frictionless flexures in the vertical plane. Friction in the horizontal plane is of no consequence because the servo motor takes care of that. The bearings that support the floating head-shell are shielded and are easily removed for cleaning should that be necessary.

Sincerely,

Ralf
 
Ralf,

Your tonearm is an impressive realization in both concept and construction. It's apparent that a lot of careful thought went into the individual features as well as the overall design and the fit and finish are excellent.

I hope a commercial venture is possible for you. I thought about chasing that with one or two of my designs, but at my age it's just too much.

If you are doing crowd funding, I'd like to know about it.
 
Very nice arm. One question, I am not sure how zero skating is achieved if you have a pivoted arm. In linear arms the line between pivot point and the stylus follows the line/force vector that equals the tangent of groove and friction vector (since the arm pivot point is moving). I can't figure out from your pictures how zero skating is achieved with your pivoted arm.
 
I can't figure out from your pictures how zero skating is achieved with your pivoted arm.

Hello ThomasA,

First of all, thank you.

At the front of my tone arm there is a part I call the "cradle" which is an integral part of the tone arm. The head-shell "floats" upon this cradle, supported by five precision ball bearings. As the independently floating head-shell tracks the groove, the cradle supports it from underneath being kept centered under the head-shell by the electronic servo, thus no skating.

I have not gotten around to posting the video of my tone arm that I promised.
Once you see that video, it will remove all doubt. I hope I will get around to it this week-end.

If that explanation is not clear, please let me know and I'll try again.

Sincerely,

Ralf