TW-Acustic Arm


TW-Acustic has a beautiful looking arm. Does anyone know what it sounds like?
128x128gerrym5
Dertonarm,

Thanks for the explanations of the Graham an Wheaton. I already knew the details. That is not my point and a different story.

I am asking you, because you are claiming to have the superior knowledge in this case. At least you are a professional manufacturer of analogue equipment.

And I am asking myself why a classical tonearm design concept, i.e. cardanic, could not have a similar or superior performance?

Anyway, nobody will know better before listening himself.

What about the 'Breuer Dynamic' which also has a similar price tag?
Tttt, the Wheaton/Triplanar does feature a cardanic bearing too - just like the Breuer, Ekos, TW and about 60% - 75% of todays tonearms.
You miss the point - the bearing concept has some influence on the sonic performance, but any bearing - knife edge, magnetic, gimbal, uni-pivot, air-bearing or mechanic - can yield excellent results.
It is about taking all the different issues into consideration and addressing them in a good designed tonearm.
The bearing is but just one of many different topics.
A good - even great - bearing can be bought from many tool-boxes OEM easily.

"Anyway, nobody will know better before listening himself" - well, thats the problem...... this is not the point at all.
Trying to judge a new tonearm now by its "sound" (whatever that is...) would imply in the very beginning, that the system set-up will be perfect (impossible...), the listening room likewise (not likely either ..) - simply all other factors beyond question and critic.

All you or any other testing the 10.5 can possibly find out whether its suits your particular taste at that point of experience in audio-listening and system set-up and under the given surrounding conditions of hardware, state of health, cartridge etc.
Thats why I am so amused about "sonic performance" as the ultimate point in the design of a purely (!) mechanical device.
Or let me put it in even shorter words:
... a perfect designed (in the mechanical/technical sense of the word) tonearm, addressing all issues in its concept will, as a direct consequence, produce the best possible "sound" with any cartridge suitable to work under the given conditions.
Why so ?
Because all the tonearm does, is to give the best possible working and guiding conditions to a cartridge.
The tonearm is nothing but the direct mechanical periphery to the cartridge at work.
The tonearm can only lessen the sound of the cartridge - it will never enhance it. All the tonearm can do - and none does - is to make no mistake.
And these are all matters of geometry, mass - dynamic and static, energy transmission and handling.
All plain simple physics - no Voodoo, no myth, no secret knowledge.

My "superior knowledge" in this case is just a matter of looking closely, using my brain and following mechanical rules.
There is no secret knowledge needed to build a truly great tonearm - there is care to detail, an intensive and complete blue-book addressing all details, a clear concept free from marketing calls, an open-minded engineer who looked at everything which was made before and detected all the pros and cons of the various attempts of others.

The Breuer Dynamic is a design which goes back to the days of (here we go again...) a Fidelity Research FR-66s.
It was quite expensive in the very early 1980ies and has more or less only hold its price tag ever since.

Its a delicate, in its early days sometimes fragile, design of today very nice craftsmanship, care and good attention to its details. It is very cartridge-sensitive too. That is to the mechanic energy emitted by the cartridge at work.
Dertonarm,

a lot of information, but interesting though.

From the bare looking at the 10.5 it seems to me that it's a classical concept, but in means of precision and manufacturing there has been taken good care and looked at the details. Even when it doesn't fullfil your expectations of innovation. At least the 10.5 was made for customers and not for fullfilling the expectations of competitors - you may understand that.

I trust Mr. Woschnick to having looked at the details closely and having used his brain, too. Moreover he had the assitance of another engineer. At least he runs his company for some years.

The performace of the tonearm will be proven anyway and is the missing link by now. On the other hand, who shall be the 'absolute judge'?

Compared to the Breuer I don't see any difference in surface/manufacturing quality or conceptual differences.
I like the VTA adjustment of the TW arm.

Testing a tonearm (and any other piece of equipment) is always a compromise, because it is clearly a fact that the surroundings always differ from place to place. I'm with you in this aspect. Even though the relative difference will always be detectable, because the surrounding won't change at all.

I don't think that this is a claim to absoluteness.
Derblowhard the author but not an engineer,

Please escape from me & go to the German Forums. I am waiting. Otherwise there is no escape for your contradictions and your desire to incite a reaction to only gain attention to yourself. Keep blowing buddy. Maybe you will explode.

Your "superior" knowledge of what?

I am just going to have fun quoting you buddy. Keep it up & keep the CONTRADICTIONS coming.

"TW has bought the design of the 10.5 OEM from a german engineer to whom it was his first attempt as such and which was originally intended to serve as a kind of "inexpensive tonearm for all" on the major German forum AAA"

(Well we know this to be not true, but we will leave it alone)

"We are talking about the very first product of its kind launched to the market by a company which has never before made/designed/co-designed a tonearm"

Yet you mention the following,

"There is no secret knowledge needed to build a truly great tonearm - there is care to detail, an intensive and complete blue-book addressing all details, a clear concept free from marketing calls, an open-minded engineer who looked at everything which was made before and detected all the pros and cons of the various attempts of others"

So what should we believe. To design and manufacture a tonearm you need experience; (which you don't have) or not? I just don't get it. What are you the AUTHOR saying?

Your "superior" understanding might educate others in a different forum but not here. Please go educate them.

Any of your works ever get translated to English?