And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Well, supposedly. Here's the problem: you want the least tracking force possible to avoid groove wear but you need enough to make sure the mechanical transducer actually 'reads' the grooves. Which means wear. Worse, the geometry of the long spiral means the forces change depending on the radius of the instant. So you're constantly chasing the best answer, which you can't do because you can't adjust on the fly.
yeah, but properly set up, the wear is minima;. Tracking does change as the radius changes, but the forces are not all that great and the stylus doesn't do that much wear side to side on the vinyl. Properly set up, there should be less than a gram on the stylus also,.
In 1988 I went to work in Sunnyvale for a company called ESL (part of TRW). The electronics technician on our team had just left Finial where he was working on their laser turntable project. The idea of reading the LP groove optically is very attractive since there was zero contact wear and many of the other issues are mitigated because of no mechanical coupling to the pickup. Of course there are many other issues to overcome and the resulting sale price was way to expensive for volume sales. Still, I always wanted one.
Well, supposedly. Here's the problem: you want the least tracking force possible to avoid groove wear but you need enough to make sure the mechanical transducer actually 'reads' the grooves. Which means wear. Worse, the geometry of the long spiral means the forces change depending on the radius of the instant. So you're constantly chasing the best answer, which you can't do because you can't adjust on the fly.
ReplyDeleteRighty right.
DeleteThe analog world we once inhabited had character if not precision.
yeah, but properly set up, the wear is minima;. Tracking does change as the radius changes, but the forces are not all that great and the stylus doesn't do that much wear side to side on the vinyl. Properly set up, there should be less than a gram on the stylus also,.
DeleteProperly set up being the key.
If it has a lateral balancer....
DeleteLess than a gram on the stylus; I remember putting nickles on the tone arm.
DeleteIn 1988 I went to work in Sunnyvale for a company called ESL (part of TRW). The electronics technician on our team had just left Finial where he was working on their laser turntable project. The idea of reading the LP groove optically is very attractive since there was zero contact wear and many of the other issues are mitigated because of no mechanical coupling to the pickup. Of course there are many other issues to overcome and the resulting sale price was way to expensive for volume sales. Still, I always wanted one.
ReplyDeleteWhat? No pennies taped to the tonearm?
ReplyDelete