Nice pictures Gary. I have a few of questions. Is that large armboard part of the arm itself or part of the AF1 turntable? It looks as though the arm base is mounted with screws to the wood insert in a larger armboard. Also, did the designer consider making the headshell and the armtube as one continuous piece of titanium, or would that have been too difficult or expensive to machine? I ask because my SME arm is of one continuous piece of magnesium and I think this is for added rigidity. Finally, what is the source of power for two LED lights and does this interfere with the signal wires? This is a fascinating arm which seems packed with technology, much like the TechDas turntable.
World Debut: Vertere Reference Tonearm
- Thread starter garylkoh
- Start date
The downside of the one-piece SME arms is that you have no azimuth adjustability which is a non-starter for many people. The fact that the SME 312s has a detachable headshell and the azimuth is adjustable was a selling point for me.
Mep, I agree about the lack azimuth adjustability of the SME V-12 arm, though I think SME considers the increased rigidity as more important. Direct comparisons between the V-12 and the 312S result in people preferring the former. Regarding this Vertere arm, it is not one-piece as the headshell is separate and later fixed to the armtub and thus it can't rotate. I can't tell if it has adjustable azimuth at the base.
Yes - Touraj was explaining to me how that worked and is a property of titanium. With the correct pressure and the correct tolerance, the headshell welds itself to the arm tube. He was telling me that it has to be done in one continuous motion because if you pause, and the pressure level is met, the headshell welds at some error from the correct position and then it becomes impossible to move.
The large armboard is part of the AF1 turntable.
He said that he couldn't make it in one continuous piece of titanium and yet achieve the wall thickness of the armtube - which was 0.4mm - and the precision.
For the prototype, he used an off-the-shelf power supply for the LED, but he has designed a very now noise power supply for the LED with adjustable brightness. Unfortunately, this wasn't ready for CES.
I believe that you are right as we did adjust the azimuth during the set-up.... although I didn't see how he did it.
This may be a form of "friction welding" that is used quite widely in precision and aerospace industries. Much of what I have seen are high speed "butt welds" of drive shafts where a precision machined and hardened drive spline section is butt against a long hollow shaft that may be a different material. The resultant high pressure hand high friction welds the 2 pieces together. These are examples, and a google search will probably bring up quite a bit of examples as well. It's been in use since maybe the 60s or 70s:
http://www.thompson-friction-welding.com/medium-diameter-applications
Welcome to WBF Han. Great to see you here. You might want to put your commercial affiliations in your signature.
TK Han is the Gryphon, Viola, Jadis, Genesis, TechDAS dealer in Malaysia/Singapore - and he came from the aerospace industry.
TK Han is the Gryphon, Viola, Jadis, Genesis, TechDAS dealer in Malaysia/Singapore - and he came from the aerospace industry.
On a similar note, I'd love to know which parts of the world the arms are going to.
All to Asia. All the business that we did at CES 2013 (speakers, tonearm, amplifiers) was for Asia..... I might have to move home
Gregadd - you know the answer to that. I think that the point of diminishing return is somewhere below the $6k for the Graham. It's not over 6 times better..... but it's better enough that dealers and distributors were willing to pick up the line.
Greg,
I think you meant linear or logarithmic . Exponential would be impossible to defend!
agree, what is great with the arm? Where are innovations implemented besides of expensive (?) material. I think we are getting fooled by this approach but no one dares to express this.
Dear friends, pls. keep critical - we are more and more over rolled by marketing campaigns, explanations delivered piece by piece by spin-doctors. Maybe this is a modern sales approach but are we inexperienced users being not able to see what is sold to us? Reminds me of the Onedof approach. Anyone remembers? Yes, okay, maybe not anymore in two years. The Phantom, the FR-66s - such arms are worth the money spent!
---- Hi airbearing; how's life around Munich? :b
Bob
P.S. Sorry, just ain't an expert on tonearm.
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I'll wait till Peter posts the video interview with Touraj. There are innovations on the tonearm as much as if not more than when Touraj introduced the Artemiz in 1987 and the Xerses in 1986.
The expensive materials and machining was to realize the innovations - otherwise, money can be saved using off-the-shelf parts.
For me, I don't care what goes into the tonearm, but I care about the music I play. When we compared the 12-inch Phantom to the Vertere, it wasn't even close. I refused public comparison because I still believe that the Graham is a good arm for the general audiophile. But for distributors who were seriously interested, and for two members of this forum, we did do a quick comparison.
The expensive materials and machining was to realize the innovations - otherwise, money can be saved using off-the-shelf parts.
For me, I don't care what goes into the tonearm, but I care about the music I play. When we compared the 12-inch Phantom to the Vertere, it wasn't even close. I refused public comparison because I still believe that the Graham is a good arm for the general audiophile. But for distributors who were seriously interested, and for two members of this forum, we did do a quick comparison.
Oh!! IT has been expressed, read the first pages! The thing is : High End Audio has become a game of price. Now Every single maker of Arm has to come up with an Arm in this "price Range". Most audiophiles with an Arm whose MSRP in a fraction of that one , now, consider theirs to be somewhat slighted. They may even actively push their preferred manufacturer to come up with an "all-out-assault on the SOTA" of course an arm of similar price. Already there are arms crossing the 20K threshold from what I read in this thread: The Telos with the Sapphire "something" is now $21,000. Who wants to bet that it won't be two years before the $50,000 tonearm of course superior to all others? Special construction has to be claimed. Audiophiles, who for many years have been perfectly content with arms hovering around $5K will raise the bar to 10K and $5K arms will become middle-of-the road. Mark my words. a $5K Arm will soon be evaluated with the condescending "good for this Price Range" qualifier/modifier
P.S. I wrote my post before Gary's last
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