Schroeder model 2 or Morch DP6?

I would strongly suggest you contact Mehran at Sorasound (sorasound@sbcglobal.net). He may be able to help you in many different ways, whichever arm you decide to go with. He also sells ZYX cartridges, which should sound great with any of the 3 that were mentioned here.

Enjoy,
Bob

Different cutting heads and other variables clearly can alter vta

Indeed. Many people apparently don't hear it, or haven't. But once you do there's no mistaking it. In fact, if I can't dial in arm height quickly and confidently it's a sure sign that something's amiss in my system.

..but what a pain in the tush!Yet it is the way to go,if one is really serious.

We started down this insane path because, like you and most of us, I'm a tweak-ophile and futz-a-holic. Paul thought I was nuts, until one day I finally stumbled onto the sweet spot for some record.

SNAP!

He literally came running into the listening room from the den (two rooms away!) "What did you just do?". I showed him. It was a microscopic turn of the Expressimo VTA collar on our old OL Silver/Shelter 901.

We were doomed. Paul literally found it painful to listen if VTA/SRA wasn't dialed in. (At Cello's he was able to set arm height on Larry's Graham just by the feel of the pressure wave coming from that rear-facing driver on his SF Extremas, without even listening. It's rather scary.)

Clearly our OL/Expressimo had to go. Adjustment on the fly became mandatory. Enter TriPlanar.

...he had the version which had a remote control for electronically setting vta,with a digital numerical readout.

SHUSH! If Paul learns there's an arm with that facility he'd trade my RX-8 for one. Then I'd have to come find you!

He had each lp's vta setting marked on the inner sleeve of ALL his "thousands" of discs.

Same here. After cleaning, each LP gets a new inner sleeve and a yellow sticky with the record's weight noted (proxy for thickness). We estimate an arm height based on experience with similar labels, weights and pressings, then find the optimal spot by listening. The exact setting from the arm's dial gets noted on the yellow sticky (to the nearest 1/200th of a revolution of the arm's dial).

Of course each new cartridge requires a different setting, but the changes are consistent. For any particular record, if the Airy 2 we reviewed liked a setting of "0" then the Airy 3 liked a setting of "8" and our UNIverse likes a setting of "18".

When we upgraded TT drive belts last summer all our settings changed again. Oy! Instead of "18" for that record with the UNIverse we're now at "29.5". Superior TT resistance to stylus drag affects how the stylus and cantilever react to the groove. This was actually quantifiable using the TriPlanar's dial and repeatable from record to record.

We may be in good shape from all that jumping up and down, but that doesn't stop us from being INSANE!

Cheers,
Doug

Doug--In this case,I think,"insane" is the sane way to go!

Hi Larry, all ...

Firstly, to those who don't know me, please take my comments with a grain of salt. As a Schröder dealer, I might be just a wee bit biased. Any comparson between the Schröder Model-2 and a Moerch DP-6 would be based on my 2 year old memory of the DP-6 - the last time I had one in my system.

This weekend I got to play with a DP-6.

I was recruited by a local customer to play cartridge mechanic - swapping a ZYX Airy-3 and a Benz LP into his Galibier / DP-6 rig. The DP-6 had a 9" red-dot standard arm wand (6 gm effective mass, non-precision headshell).

For the ZYX, we added 5.1 grams to the headshell (a nickel affixed with Blu-tack). In retrospect, we should have increased the mass of the red-dot for the Benz too, since the red-dot wand has an effective mass of only 6 grams.

I noticed one change in the current generation of DP-6 tonearms. The new DP-6 appears to be wired with sliver. Since I was listening in an unfamiliar system, I hesitate to speculate about significance of this change, but my guess is that the wire has effected an improvement. Treat this as speculation and nothing more.

The wiring change may tip the sonic balance in favor of the Moerch (over my $400 Micro Seiki MA-505 Mk III). It's difficult to say. Previously, I considered the two arms to be too close to call.

One thing may have been lost in my previous comments. The Moerch DP-6 is a very natural sounding tonearm. In this respect, it finds itself in very select company - alongside the Triplanar and Micro Seiki tonearms. As natural sounding as any Schröder? Not on your life, but nothing I've heard to date is as natural sounding.

Having said that, these arms (Triplanar, Moerch, Micro Seiki) have their own virtues and one could easily prefer them to a Schröder. Raul can comment further on other arms, like the vintage SME's and the great Japanese tonearms, and I'd take what he has to say very seriously.

Some gripes I have about the Moerch include but are not limited to the anti-skate adjustment.

Azimuth adjustment in the arm is a great feature, but why Moerch didn't drill an access hole into the top of the arm wand disk for easier azimuth adjustment is beyond me. I suspect that very few Moerch owners even play with the azimuth adjustment due to how inconvenient it is to access the Allen screw. This is a pity.

I also wish that Moerch made all of the arm wands with the precision headshell and eliminated the standard headshell versions..

Realize that no product is perfect. I'm certain that there are an equal number of individuals who take issue with the ergonomics of the Schröder Model-2 for example.

Gripes and all, you can do a lot worse than owning a DP-6.

One exercise I'd like to carry out in the next few months is to put it up against the Hadcocks. This will be a very, very interesting exercise !

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

Thom,

Nice report and summary. I think you're safe as long as you don't mention the Bxsxs Vxctxr! ;-)

... why Moerch didn't drill an access hole into the top of the arm wand disk for easier azimuth adjustment is beyond me.

Perhaps to provide the damping fluid chamber a sealed, stable environment and prevent dust contamination? Just speculating.

Of course they could drill an azimuth access hole and seal it with a threaded plug. Best of both worlds!