Fremer says 9" arms are inherently superior?

DaveyF

Well-Known Member
Jul 31, 2010
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I think that MF has a very good point in regards to the 9" arm vs the 12" arm. I would agree with him 100% that the 9" arm if well executed, should have less moment of inertia and more rigidity.
Like I posted above, there are a lot of other overriding factors that I think are more important than length when it comes to a great tonearm, but IME rigidity is a major factor that many seem to dismiss.

As to the aggressive anti-reviewer attitude, oh please!! When we have reviewers who think they are above everyone else...can we say All hail King Peter; then what the heck!:eek:
 

cjfrbw

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Apr 20, 2010
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High End reviewing is a game, and taking the occasional potshot and broadside is part of the game.

If somebody wants to engage in “reviewer worship” and abdicate their own sensibilities and intellect, that is their privilege.

However, remember that in order to be valid, all information needs to be “falsifiable”, and all of the major critics at one time or another wind up being frivolous, whimsical, silly or even manipulative because they are humans, not oracles. They should be ready to accept the observations as such.
 

jeff1225

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Jan 29, 2012
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I have minimal respect for the hobby of audio reviewing, and it is a hobby as there are no professional reviewers. Only in audio reviewing, do reviewers refuse to review products in a double blind fashion. Can you imagine if there was no blind testing at the Paris or New York wine tasting events in the 1970's? There's no way Californian wines would have come out on top.
 

TBone

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Nov 15, 2012
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The biggest fault line in that area is that I personally greatly prefer reviewers who write comparative reviews, and that is one reason I have so much respect for Michael Fremer’s reviews.

Well, not only does he compare, but he also provides rips which allow the reader to hear the product in question. To my knowledge, he is the one doing that ...

Thankfully Fremer has gotten over his silly "hate" for all things digital and in turn has used it as a viable tool for comparison. It is one thing to provide a review and opinion, but quite another to let the reader in on that very experience.

In my opinion, most other "pro" reviews are next to useless, and many are plain misguided or incorrect.

As far as Fremer's rips are concerned, he has come a long way ... his recent rips using the SAT tonearm are amongst the very best rips I've ever heard. I can't say that for his prior rips using other arms.

It's farrrrrrrrrr toooooooo EASY to yap yap and yap again, pro or not, ... about the sonic fairy tale attributes of analog equipment.

IMO, it's time other reviewers (and manufacturers) followed Fremer's lead and supply actual(rips) examples as evidence.

TB1
 

Fsonicsmith

Well-Known Member
Jun 25, 2015
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In post 5 I listed the advantages of longer arms. I have only heard or read one advantage of a 9" arm-less moment of inertia. To the extent that I threw out a bunch of ideas as to why Mr. Fremer said what he said, that is what many of us do in exchanging ideas. The board would be boring if everything were reduced to "I agree" or "I do not agree". I could have theorized that because he was reviewing a well known and admired arm that was redesigned in a 9" version, he was trying to come up with the usual and seemingly obligatory reviewer lead-in wind-up. Anyone who has read reviews for any length of time (45 years in my case) has learned to skip over the foreplay/diatribe that begins the review, where the reviewer tries to set the stage as to why they have chosen the particular subject of the review. But I did not and the reason I did not was because I have read Mr. Fremer express this view in the past. I have owned and liked 9", 10.5", and 12" arms. I am not new to posting about audio. I refrain from any personal rock-slinging with fellow contributors to this Board. When it comes to vinyl and audio, Mr. Fremer is a public figure. He takes ample advantage of his status and in exchange, he is subject to criticism of his criticism.
 

TBone

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Nov 15, 2012
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In post 5 I listed the advantages of longer arms.

Yet, you also posted this nonsense ... "I claim and continue to claim that his preoccupation with avoiding resonances at every level of playback is overblown and misguided."

If you can't understand the massive negative influence of resonances ... well ...
 

cjfrbw

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Apr 20, 2010
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Yet, you also posted this nonsense ... "I claim and continue to claim that his preoccupation with avoiding resonances at every level of playback is overblown and misguided."

If you can't understand the massive negative influence of resonances ... well ...

The problem is with vinyl, it's ALL about resonances, both positive and negative. Killing all resonance results in "dead" sound, so selectively admitting favored resonance and mass effect is a good bit of the charm.
 

Fsonicsmith

Well-Known Member
Jun 25, 2015
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Yet, you also posted this nonsense ... "I claim and continue to claim that his preoccupation with avoiding resonances at every level of playback is overblown and misguided."

If you can't understand the massive negative influence of resonances ... well ...

I am glad you brought that up. In that respect, I am definitely biased. I am the very happy owner of DeVore O/93's. When a reviewer writes that the enclosure is full of resonant nodes that must adversely effect the SQ to a greater or lesser degree, I bristle a bit. Mea culpa, I happen to believe that very well respected reviewers spew a lot of utter BS based on measurements. "Massive negative influence of resonances"! Let me ask; why do you use that phrase? Why "MASSIVE"? Do you possess your own independent basis for that view of the audio-world, or is it one you absorbed from reading reviews? Your loudspeaker drivers resonate, your room resonates, your ear drums resonate, your cartridge and cantilever resonate, but you believe that resonance is evil. I am telling you that based upon my own experience, I don't feel things are so simple. Good audio systems "play" to the reality of resonance. A completely dead speaker enclosure could be fabricated of concrete and a completely dead listening room could be fabricated like an anechoic chamber and every resonance in the system could be systematically eliminated and if you got any sound at all, it would sound like shite. I happen to believe that eliminating resonance from vibrating transformers in an amp and using dampers around a sensitive input tubes and isolating a turntable from resonance are most often beneficial and have their place, but the idea that all resonance is bad is simply incorrect. That has been my primary point in each of my posts in this thread.
 

TBone

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Nov 15, 2012
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The problem is with vinyl, it's ALL about resonances, both positive and negative. Killing all resonance results in "dead" sound, so selectively admitting favored resonance and mass effect is a good bit of the charm.

a blanket statement, it really depends on the eq at hand ... since it is impossible to kill "all" resonance within the analog chain ... I prefer the word control.

When it comes to analog, resonance gets generated, then travels from TT to Arm, to Cart, and then, unfortunately ... back again. This whole process modulates and colors (some may prefer such colorations, but ...) ... further excited by the very playback of the vinyl/stylus interface/groove modulation.

In my many travels in analog, resonances are fully detrimental to overall sound quality.
 

rockitman

Member Sponsor
Sep 20, 2011
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Yet, you also posted this nonsense ... "I claim and continue to claim that his preoccupation with avoiding resonances at every level of playback is overblown and misguided."

If you can't understand the massive negative influence of resonances ... well ...

Not all resonance is bad unless you like the music completely stripped of its soul. Active isolation does this.
 

TBone

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Nov 15, 2012
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"Massive negative influence of resonances"! Let me ask; why do you use that phrase? Why "MASSIVE"? Do you possess your own independent basis for that view of the audio-world, or is it one you absorbed from reading reviews?"

big sigh, as stated, I think most analog reviews without proof (rips) are useless ... when it comes to resonance control ... I came to the above conclusion based on actual hands on experience working with, and modifying MANY turntables.
 

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
I agree Ron

I find this for me at least to be a most interesting thread. Mike has joined the forum and I am hoping he will post his thoughts and that any and all responses be carried out in a kind and civil manner. I would like to learn from this thread.
 

ack

VIP/Donor & WBF Founding Member
May 6, 2010
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I also hope Mike will respond. I also happen to agree with him at least on the moment of inertia claim, but then, how does tracking distortion of a 9" arm counter any claimed gains?
 

cjfrbw

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Apr 20, 2010
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The analog signal from the record itself is an electromechanical resonance.

I always thought that “Continuum” was one of the best names for a turntable. Nothing is discrete, it's all continuous either inclusive or exclusive. Where do you apply the “resonance knife”? At what point do you trim back the fat too much or too little to get the best musical sensation from the analog chain?

It implies that the points of incision are always more or less arbitrary and to taste.
 

TBone

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Nov 15, 2012
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I also hope Mike will respond. I also happen to agree with him at least on the moment of inertia claim, but then, how does tracking distortion of a 9" arm counter any claimed gains?

Perhaps the many MANY issues in regard to maintaining correct groove/stylus interface, plus the myriad of other resonance issues related to colorations within the analog chain ... are far more negative in nature when compared to tracking distortion.
 

TBone

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Nov 15, 2012
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The SAT arm is all about controlling resonance ... so after hearing Fremer's rips with the SAT arm, I did some digging (as I've done so many times before) ...

below (not scaled) ... is the right channel freq.resp from a recent Fremer rip using a $10K cart and the SAT arm. The red trace is Fremer/SAT and the white trace is a comparison digital version. Along with changes in tonality, via either mastering or equipment ... resonance and timing issues related to vinyl, all too often rear there ugly selves in measured comparisons, especially in the bass regions.

Not so much in this case ... his SAT rips not only sounds great, but measured quite accurate. My own system, which is very accurate, could not duplicate these results, however I did not have the same pressing to compare, so apples to oranges.

fremer_bargain_car60_right.jpg
 

TBone

New Member
Nov 15, 2012
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Lacking soul in my context means the music sounds dead, lifeless. This is what happens when your goal is to remove all resonances indiscriminately.

Let's pretend, if you may, that I've been around long enough to know what "soul" is in relation to the emotional context of music for any playback device, or Live for that matter ... but ... if you prefer certain colorations brought on by certain resonances, then who am I to argue. I prefer my vinyl to be as accurate as possible.
 

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