Well, I finally got mine set up today. Combination of schedule, and bad logistics. The Finite Elemente floor stand, on which the XL turntable belongs, was lost in transit, and another just sent. I'm tracking its progress like Chloe on 24.
Meantime, my pump (no, not that one) had a problem that I knew had to be a silly thing, but I only just figured it out- the dealer delivered the pump already set up, and one of the fittings was out of place, preventing a complete seal. Moved it into place and bingo, air pressure.
The arm is very straightforward to set up, at least on the big Kuzma table. You do have to read the directions carefully, though, since-you'll say, "I'll be damned if I know the distance of the arm pillar to the platter," you do a couple other things that make sense, go back re-read the directions, and there, as if it were hidden the first time 'round, is the magic measurement, in English, not Slovenian.
The only hearstopping moment is trying to balance the arm- the thing just has so little friction that it gives new meaning to the word "increment." I pulled out an old Technics piezo stylus pressure gauge that I bought new, in 1973 or thereabouts, and got the pressure I wanted- figured just shy of 1.8 on the Titan(i) and then fiddled with arm height, VTA,etc. The tangency or whatever you call it, was dead-on, according to the simple protractor that comes with the arm.
Now, mind you, I don't consider myself even competent when it comes to turntable set-ups, but I got this rig up and running pretty quickly, and it is making music-
compared to the Triplanar VII, I wouldn't worry about losing any bass- this thing is foundational, goes down, down, down- (now that may also be a function of the XL, which is really a beast compared to the Stabi Reference that it replaced, but it isn't "BIG" bass, its deeeeep, with proportion and tonality).
I'm still playing with this thing, VTA settings are a snap on the fly, cueing is easy, nice big lever, easily managed and no skew when the arm ascends or descends, and can't wait to hear it once it has been set up on a proper table, by a master. (Right now, it is sitting on a very heavy 10 foot Chinese mahogany prayer table, on top of an Alvin Lloyd Shelf with his 160lb plus dampers between the prayer table and the shelf- not exactly as god or Alvin Lloyd intended but it's temporary).
As to the 'quiet' of a linear arm compared to a pivoted one, I played with a few in my day (had an ET2 for a little while years ago) and was never a complete believer, given all the attention they needed, but I could hear a difference.
With this arm (combined with XL table, since both are new variables), the silence between the notes is clearly noticeable in a way that wasn't before. It is like everything is brought out in greater relief from the background- imagine one of those three dimensional sculptures by Michelangelo that was never finished- the figures are emerging from the stone, but are never free of it, and their backs meld into something clearly not alive- in that case, a huge block of stone. Here, the figures have emerged, if not entirely, than in much greater dimension- the result is a sense of palpability that the other arm-table combo seemed simply incapable of rendering. Mind you, these are first impressions, and I think the table/arm combo will sound better once it is set up properly.
(The pump is in another room, on a different electrical line- I don't think I could live with it in the same room).
