GrooveGlider 9.4" & 12" variable effective mass pivot tonearms
Materials - Design -Sound
Technology + Design at the service of music reproduction
Grooveglider 9.4" tonearm
General considerations
What is a tonearm supposed to do?
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Hold a cartridge steadily in place in a system as rigid as it gets
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Let the cartridge move within two axes with the least friction possible and with an effective mass compatible with the cartridge's compliance.
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Damp any internal or external force that isn't related to the stylus/cantilever movement.
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Add or subtract nothing from the cartridge performance.
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Unleash the cartridge's full potential.
The GrooveGlider family of tonearm does precisely that, no more, no less. So, please, don't get annoyed when we insist on damping and rigidity in the following pages.
Let's briefly consider why we gold-plate all the brass parts.
The reason isn't for bling or added nobility to the product, but gold plating with an anti-tarnish treatment is more resistant to oxidation than the bare brass that tends to oxidate quite quickly.
90% of the parts are hand-made in our workshop, so slight variations in the fit and finish can be expected.
Grooveglider closeup
The tonearm's base
The base is made from solid machined finely brushed brass and then 24 carats gold plated.
Compatible with Rega 3-points arm boards for ease of installation with two grub screws that keep in place the central pillar and set the VTA.
Brass has been known for centuries for its damping abilities and extremely low levels of internal resonances. No wonder why is used in so many musical instruments.
The tonearm's base is the first line of defence against unwanted micro-vibrations and spurious resonances from the deck; it effectively damps all resonances, maintaining a high level of rigidity.
The central pillar and pivot.
The central pillar and pivot are all made from solid, machined stainless steel 316L. 316L Stainless Steel is widely used in surgical tools and where the highest quality, hardness and corrosion resistance is required, like in luxury watches cases.
The design of this part is efficient; the polished steel pivot needs to be hard enough to withstand decades of work and offer minimal friction, while the oil damper reservoir needs to be corrosion-proof. The silicone oil damper can be employed if there is a need to increase the tonearm's effective mass.
316L SS is tough and rigid but is protected from external resonance and vibrations by the generously sized brass base at the bottom and the tonearm's brass hub at the top.
The utility bar.
The utility bar is made from CNC-machined aeronautic grade anodised aluminium. The material is light, elegant and designed to withstand the test of time. The design of this part is utilitarian but pleasant to the eye, with sleek lines and exceptionally well-finished.
Lower cable connector.
Pro-grade gold plated 4-pin mini XLR with machined 24 carats gold plated brass and epoxy filled. The mini XLR connector is of professional quality with no measurable loss of signal.
Cable.
In many competitors' cables, you will be disappointed seeing that the cabling is just a commercial low-grade antenna cable with some fancy nonsense printed on it and the declared "low-capacitance" isn't low at all with values that most of the time exceeds the 180pF. Instead, our in-house cable is one metre long with two silver-coated OFC internal conductors and a RAY-101 mil-grade braided shield. The cable is designed explicitly for phono cartridge audio. The standard terminations are two professional Amphenol RCA plugs.
The cable offers the best performance with a very low capacitive feature, below the 100 pF required by most modern MM phono cartridges. If needed, the wiring allows for the conversion of the cable in a fully balanced configuration.
The sonic performance is at pairs or exceeding most world-leading phono cables.
Centre hub
The centre hub is made from solid finely brushed brass, then 24 carats gold plated, while the central insert with the pivot nest is made from solid, machined stainless steel 316L.
The hub is crucial for how the pivot works (mass and weight distribution) and the sound neutrality (damping all unwanted resonances, internal and external).
The gold-plated brass is relatively heavy and puts the centre of gravity well below the pivoting point; on top of that, the counterweights, later weights and arm tube/cartridge assembly are placed perfectly in the axis lowering the centre of gravity furthermore and giving the pivot excellent stability during operation.
All that gives excellent user feedback making you forget that you are operating a pivot-based tonearm. Pivot tonearms users often complain that the tonearm feels unstable and wobbly while moving the cartridge in position or after reproduction.
At the centre of the hub is mounted the stainless steel pivot receptor. At this point, the pivot works are polished and self-centring, and the walls extend well into the damping oil reservoir located in the central pillar and act as a paddle into the optional viscous fluid.
All the parts in the GrooveGlider are designed to reduce unwanted vibrations and resonances; if some reach the hub, the heavy mass of the machined brass is excellent protection against residual vibrations.
The pivot system offers the lowest friction possible and way lower than any bearing-based system where the inevitable noise coming from the bearings is exponentially higher; the pivot receptor is surrounded by naturally damping brass, and there is no way that any unwanted noise from the pivot could upset the work of your cartridge.
Counterweight stub
Stub and counterweight - CAD rendering
The counterweight stub is made from three concentrical elements of different materials. The inner part is made from stainless steel 316L, the middle part is made from silicone tube, and the outer part is from machined finely brushed brass and then 24 carats gold plated.
The counterweight stub is a heavily damped system. The reason for this heavy damping resides in the counterweight's mass; the counterweights, despite being made from solid, self-damping brass, are still exposed to external vibrations, mostly coming from the sound waves around the tonearm. The only part attached to the hub is the inner part of the stub made from steel for rigidity reasons; undamped movements go to the outer part of the stub made from brass, partly damped by the brass but entirely neutralised by the silicone layer.
Forget funny-shaped counterweights; the secret of sound neutrality of the counterweights assembly is in the stub design.
Counterweight
The counterweights are two and made from solid machined finely brushed brass and then 24 carats gold plated.
The counterweights are simple, circular, with a stub hole in the centre. We supply two smaller counterweights instead of one larger for three main reasons.
Firstly it's easier to fine-tune the VTF by leaving one counterweight in place and moving one of smaller mass; secondly, we can slightly modify the effective mass by playing with the location of the two counterweights concerning each other and the pivot point, thirdly we can better adapt to cartridges with different mass.
Coupled with the heavily damped stub, the counterweights are completely sound neutral.
Headshell
The headshell is made from CNC-machined aeronautic grade anodised aluminium. The material is light, elegant and designed to withstand the test of time.
Against today's manufacturer's trend offering "headshells" that are nothing more than a tiny metal bar secured to the arm tube with a screw without caring that the setup will be a nightmare and the spurious resonances will wander around the cartridge without being discharged further down the line; our headshell is designed to maximise the ease of installation and operation while achieving a superior ability to damp the resonances far from the cartridge. The straight front is perfectly aligned with the offset angle at which the cartridge must be set, align any straight line on the cartridge parallel to the front of the headshell, and you are set. The connection with the arm tube is designed to transmit all unwanted forces around the arm tube.
The headshell is very stiff like it is supposed to be but designed to get rid of resonances by simply damping them down to the arm tube; the result is perfect tonal neutrality.
Arm tube
The arm tube is made from high-graphite carbon fibre.
Again, we are going against today's trend that's offering arm tubes of large sections and thin walls. Our arm tube is of modest section (6mm) with thick walls (2mm), and this is because we think that it makes more sense. The torsional and tangential stiffness of a small tube with thick walls is no worse than one with a large section and thin walls. While it doesn't suffer from internal echoing due to the ample space, the almost filled cavity of our tube will kill any internal reverberation instead of amplifying it; last but not least, a small tube section will offer a much smaller area that can be subject of ambient resonances let's not forget that the tonearm sits in an environment where loud music is played and high-energy sound waves, mostly from lower frequencies, will hit the tonearm and most notably the arm tube.
Stiffness and the ability to damp resonances from the headshell and the ambient are what an arm tube is supposed to do, and ours does it brilliantly.
Upper wiring
The gold-plated copper alloy cartridge clips are of modern design that allows connecting cartridge pins of all sizes; the wires are silk-coated OFC Litz wires made from 16 strands of 0.04mm of section each.
The mini-XLR connector has gold-plated sockets that perfectly match the connector located at the base.
The pro-grade of the connector ensures the best possible sound.