New Schroeder linear tonearm, any thoughts?

Sarcher and Lew,

I have had identical cartridges (both MM amd LOMC) mounted in the Copperhead, the DaVinci 12" Ref, the Phantom II and the FR-66S all on the Raven AC-2 turntable going into the same Halcro DM-10 Phono Preamp.
The Copperhead has unbroken balanced XLR cables from cartridge to Phono. The DaVinci had unbroken RCAs from cartridge to Phono whilst the Phantom II and FR-66s both have two additional connections (headshell or armwand plus din plug-in cable).
According to the 'theory'.....all cartridges should sound better in the Copperhead and DaVinci.
This was certainly not the case with many LOMCs sounding better in the FR-66S whilst the Copperhead won with most MM cartridges.
The DaVinci did not win 'outright' on any whilst the Phantom II fell apart with almost all MMs?

Michael Fremer has tested identical LOMCs on his Caliburn table using both the Cobra and Phantom II tonearms side by side and was not able to hear any advantages to the 'unbroken' wiring of the Cobra?

If I had heard any hint of this 'theoretical' advantage in my setup.......I would not have ended up with 5 out of my 6 arms having interchangeable headshells? :-)
As always.....YMMV.

Hello Royaloak,
The reason for the suggested undercompensation is the usually higher than acceptable sidethrust on the cantilever, caused by an antiskating mechanism. While the force excerted by the stylus/diamond on both groove walls may be equalized, it causes a permanent cantilever displacement( since the antiskating acts on the arm, not the diamond itself), resulting in a non linear behaviour.
Imagine a speaker being exposed to a certain amount of a DC voltage. The null position of the speaker(where it rests when no signal is present) will have moved forward or backward, depending upon the polarity of said DC voltage. The maximum cone displacement is reached sooner in one direction, it takes a different amount of force to move it forward vs. moving it backward.
Same for a cantilever that has a conventional suspension, dynamic gradation is foreshortened and the resolution of microdetail(what happens around the Null point) diminished.
If one is to reduce the skating compensation to zero, the non linearities caused by non-equal pressure of the diamond on the groove walls will have a larger influence, so zero antiskating isn't the answer either(imho).
And I have not even touched the issue of the coil position against the magnetic circuit when a preload is present. Not as severe an issue and highly generator design dependent, but...

As said in the manual of my arms, my suggestion is a starting point, not an absolute(ly perfect) setting. If your method yields better results, - or results you like better, then, by all means, go by that!

All the best,

Frank

Halcro, it is interesting that the Phantom did not do well with MM cart's. I have read that before.

IMO, you can not make any solid conclusions about wiring, without testing it out on the same tonearm. Otherwise the differences you hear, or don't hear, could be caused by the arms themselves. Not the wiring.

Why would the Phantom fall short with MM cartridges? At first glance, its effective mass would not be wildly different from that of the other three tonearms Halcro mentions. In fact, its effective mass is certainly lower than that of the FR66S, if not also the DaVinci. So the observation cannot be due solely to a mismatch of compliance vs effective mass. What a strange and maddening "hobby" this is. It makes you want to go to work for relaxation.

Ahh! The Phantom is a unipivot; the others in Halcro's stable are not. Perhaps that's the important factor. I could imagine that a low compliance cartridge might be better suited to a unipivot, compared to a high compliance one.