But other arms which have adjustable VTA during play have tight locking mechanisms.
Doesn't matter. When you lock it back down, it's gonna move because that lock's going to torque it to one side and that's not only going to slightly change the VTA but it'll shift the azimuth as well since the whole assembly is flexing to one side.

However, we do have adjustable damping during play. It's very useful when a record was produced with less than state-of-the-art mastering equipment and solid-state multi-mixing stations. Remember, wherever there's a contact somewhere, a slider, fader switch or whatever, there are spikes, noise and arcing. You can usually test this real easily by trying some of our SST Super Silver Treatment. It stops the arcing on your connections and you can hear a huge difference. Imagine what happens when you're trying to master a record through a mixing station. The arcing noises generated there actually make it straight into the plating process. Now, they'll say "Well, you don't have that extended a frequency range on a record." I'll say "Nonsense, it's still distorted."


Remember the four-channel records?

Oh yeah.


They went up to 30 or 35kHz..
Some of them went up to 60kHz. Anyway, part of that noise and distortion is on the record. You know how some of your vinyl is actually noisy and gritty sounding. This is ultrasonic noise and mostly outside human hearing bandwidth. Regardless, it still excites the cartridge/arm combination. With adjustable damping [right], just a little gets the cartridge/arm combination back under control and that layer of noise and distortion virtually disappears. It's an easy adjustment; just turn it a little bit. A brass displacer goes down into the dampening trough to slightly raise or lower the fluid level. Our damping paddle is locked to the arm and made from hardened aircraft aluminum and tapered to a sharp needle point that contacts a dampening trough about six inches long and an inch deep. With some records, you can tell a dramatic difference between one drop of damping fluid. That's why the contact is a long tapered point so you can set the damping precisely to what you want because too much damping will hurt the sound.

I find that the better the record, the less damping is necessary.

Exactly. There's less noise on it, the vinyl is better; the recording is better.


And with some spectacular records, I find it at times hard to tell, damping or no damping. But with the worst records, especially the old 70s solid-state Classic Rock pressings, it actually smoothes them out nicely without dulling the sound.


Exactly. It also depends on how well the suspension inside the cartridge is damped All records will benefit from some damping; however, one can overdo it. Just listen. Some manufacturers use damping on their arms and use large paddles a quarter inch wide on the bottom. That'll never work properly. It may work okay with one cartridge but will completely kill the sound with another. That's why so many people say, "I don't like damping because it dampens the sound." Yes and no. If you do it right, it will not dull the sound but only remove the ultrasonic noise. But you have to be able to make truly micro-fine adjustments.

You talked about the importance of the proper air flow...


The air supply system is most important and ours is fully automatic. The air is filter-compressed, then cooled. The moisture and oils are automatically removed and dispensed into a holding bottle that you empty when full. There is a back pressure regulator that sets the pressure for the arm and air suspension -- usually to 45 psi -- and a regulator that sets the pressure for the platter – usually from 3 to 6 psi. There are also 4 large internal damping chambers to smooth out the pulses from the compressor and 2 large differential external dampening chambers for the arm/air suspension supply.
Why damping chambers both at the compressor and at the table?
These are to remove any pressure changes due to flexing of the tubing and pressure pulses due to vibrations. Also, the air flow for the platter is adjusted at the damping chamber at the table. This chamber removes any noise created by the needle valve.

You talked about filtering. How is that accomplished?
It is done with 2 automatic filters. The first filter is a 5 micron filter for moisture and the other a .01 micron filter to remove oil and other impurities.


What's the tolerance of the arm?



That is proprietary. I will say that it's a high-pressure low-flow design.



How do the air jets keep the arm centered and essentially frictionless?


The geometry of the air jets keeps the arm in place. If the arm is forced down, the air pressure on top would drop but it would build up tremendously underneath. If the arm tried to move up, the opposite jets would increase pressure dramatically to compensate. It's pretty unique how I've done that. It works like an aircraft wing, creating lift in four directions and at two ends, being 5½ inches apart.
Because of the length of the block and the jets, any force on the arm will cause an opposing pressure to be applied, therefore the arm will always attempt to keep itself level and centered?

That's right because if the arm tries to move up or down one way, the opposing pressure changes in all planes to keep it centered. You know, if you had the type of arm that slides over a tube, the arm bearing itself is actually only about an inch long. If there's any movement there, it's quite dramatic.

Are there any O-rings used in the design?


No O-rings, no manifold. Some manufacturers do use this type of an arm - they'll have a manifold that shoves in and sits on o-rings at each end. They bring air into the center and the jets are set inside the manifold so it seals at each end. But that hard rubber O-ring is like one bouncy, bouncy ball.


So inside that block [above] are just jets?



Yeah, there's eight fixed jets and that's it.



So you don't consider this a manifold?



No, the manifold and mono-block are the same - it's all one piece.