If you have a Quick Question…

Why do Origin Live arms not have the Yoke offset as other arms do?

In theory not having an offset of the Yoke yields slight azimuth errors on warped records – whether this is ever audible is doubtful. Theory tends to sometimes focus on measuring and calculating what the ear cannot hear and not what it can.

The reason we prefer a non-offset yoke is that it reduces bearing friction by reducing side force on gimbal bearings and dual pivots.

We don’t take the shortcut of guessing what is best as so many do, but rather we test, test, and test again. Our findings are that additional friction is far more important than azimuth errors. Theoretical dogma often blocks real progress and there are some who will no doubt take issue with this – the only answer is to listen to the results.

To prove the force argument is much more complex than appears at first sight and incorrect assumptions are often made about the forces in operation when side bias is also taken into account.

It’s worth adding that even the conventional offset of the yoke on most decks is still only theoretically correct at one point on the record and is compromised the rest of the time, in a similar manner to angular tracking distortion.

Michael Fremmer, who is probably one of the most respected analogue reviewers on the planet and knows the theory of arms inside out, gave our Illustrious arm a superb review and never even mentioned the yoke offset. For over 10 years reviewers have never questioned the offset issue for the simple reason that the sound quality speaks for itself.

If people are absolutely paranoid about azimuth change on warped records then use a record clamp – you solve the VTA issues as well by doing this. Origin Live only recommend the use of a record clamp for really bad records as clamps tend to degrade sound quality.

Silver Wire Cable in a Tonearm Rewire?

Don’t be misled by specifications – we’ve tried PTFE, silver plate, solid silver, etc. Getting silver wire cable to sound right is not easy and there are many silver wires that may sound transparent but also tend to be overly bright and incapable of producing low bass.

Silver is an important aspect but only one of many other aspects. On it’s own, silver wire is no guarantee of quality. For example, silver is only 5% more conductive than copper whereas the Harmony plugs we offer are 4 times as conductive as commonly used brass but nobody asks “what are the phono plugs made of?”. The fact is that there are critical elements of cable design that are not talked about and which have 10 times the influence on the sound than say PTFE insulation.

Without meaning to be vague, the information on the make up of our cables is largely confidential and not particularly meaningful as it’s almost impossible to pick out a high performance wire on such things as silver, PTFE, coaxial, balanced, etc. People can guess at the things that really make a wire tick but we don’t advertise them as it would give away too much to our competitors and not mean a great deal to the average person. At the end of the day one has to make a choice based on reputation and results rather than specifications which even the experts don’t fully understand.

In summary, our view is that a well designed copper wire will outperform a poor silver one but a well specified silver wire will outperform a good copper one. Lastly, it’s important to realise that although almost all silver in Hi-Fi is 99.99% pure, there is a vast difference in the way the silver has been processed. This alone affects the measured resistance, but is of minor significance compared to the differences in sound quality. Well processed silver is expensive as it takes real know-how, much longer production times and the right equipment.

Why Not Use Continuous Rewiring Cable with No Joints in the Tonearm?

If a continuous wire is used for a tonearm from the headshell tags to the phono stage or amp, it needs to be very thin to avoid restricting the freedom of movement of the tonearm. This means it is automatically a non-optimal solution as wire characteristics are more influential on signal quality than solder joints.

There is a  common misconception that all wire joints are bad. In practice there is a vast difference between a mechanical joint and a soldered joint. Mechanical joints such as 5-pin DIN plugs are audibly detrimental as they put brass in the signal path and a mechanical joint is not good news either. Origin Live avoid mechanical joints unless specifically requested. Instead we use copper to copper wire joints using the highest grade solder containing silver and gold. This is a virtually inaudible joint and not to be confused or put in the same class as mechanical joints.

Internal wires must be very thin to avoid arm friction but this has the disadvantage of high resistance and non-optimal design for low level signal transmission (Approx 1000 times less than CD player). We want low resistance and other desirable properties, so the design of the much longer external cable is not thin wire, but wire designed for optimum performance.

These benefits have been tested and prove to far outweigh the “no joint” alternative. It should also be added that the external wiring is 4 times as long as the internal and thus is more influential. Even with a 5 din pin joint in the base of the arm, the benefits of a better external arm cable easily surpass those of using wafer-thin continuous wire.

According to our rigorous listening tests, joints are audible to varying degrees depending on their type. However, to sacrifice using better cable in favour of no joints is an incorrect conclusion. Those who make this understandable mistake probably do so because they experimented with such a poor external cable that it would invalidate any result.  This is not surprising because genuinely high-performance external cables are hard to find.

Whatever external wire is used, it is always best to hardwire it to the internal wiring. However 5-pin plugs are sometimes necessary and any degradation is still far outweighed by the opportunity to use a better external cable.

Our external cable may not the most flexible on the market but there are advantages to having a slightly stiffer cable on suspended decks as it improves sound quality by reducing rotational movement of the sub-chassis.