Jean Hiraga’s system. After the Henri Texier bass solo the music opens up
Looks like an early LP12!
Are they Fostex bullet tweeters?
He’s using a Nasotec swing headshell on with an unusual straight arm (any ideas?). a friend uses one on a straight 7" Viv labs to good effect.
Hiraga has been ahead of many trends, it’s quite unusual to see a Fruit box feeding large WE type Horns…
Including tying everything together with a rug ?
2 Likes
Would like to see an honest freq plot… 30Hz?
Think they’ve missed a nought off. 
1 Like
Only just noticed the straight arm. Not a clue what it is. Guy might know?
When did the Nasotec first appear? Were they even around when JH was building such systems as this one?
Thank you, I’d seen one somewhere online before but couldn’t for the life of me pin point it. 10 points
1 Like
Would love to come across as the all knowing hifi guru but I just emailed Ana Mighty Sound who did the video for mono and stereo.
Does look interesting for an £1100 arm though.
For a while it’s been an ambition of mine to try a Thorens TP-16 straight tonearm with a TP-50 headshell to see what the effect of that ‘no offset angle’ approach (used by Viv Labs and this Fidelix arm) would be like. I have the TP16 arm but need to find the TP-50 headshell as the one I borrowed I had to give back. The stock TP-16 shell has an offset angle whereas the TP-50 doesn’t but both have the Thorens pin coupling arrangement which means an SME compatible shell wouldn’t work.
I totally don’t understand this. Surely you’d get loads of tracing distortion? Like double digit %? What’s the advantage?
I think Higara and my friend are using the swing headshell, this allows, as my friends says, the ‘offset’ to be more ‘fluid’. Fuzzy language but hearing it with a 7" arm turns a lot of pre conceived ideas upside down… Much of this I don’t understand.
Ok that makes some sense then, the base of the tonearm is not the pivot? Makes my head hurt a bit, but I can see that that might do the job
Is the headshell supposed to swivel and compensate for the lack of offset as it tracks across the record?
Viv Labs don’t have a rotating or adjusting headshell as standard. Their view is that the distortion created by the variable sidethrust while tracing a groove is more significant & harmful than that produced by the geometric errors.
They did actually produce a white paper explaining it but I can’t find a copy at the moment.
There’s some explanation here.
http://v2.stereotimes.com/post/viv-lab-rigid-tonearm/
1 Like
Just posted in the Garrard 301 Service thread, a 301 with another straight arm but this time a mechanism at the pivot point intended to keep the stylus at the same angle to the groove across the whole of the record?
An articulating headshell concept isn’t new
I do think with the straight arms something like the Nasotec allows for some ‘give’ that otherwise wouldn’t be possible
Ok even more interesting actually - side force worse than tracking error, so just have it straight. Looks like interesting thinking, but I think I prefer the idea of a linear tracker if you don’t want side force. I struggle with the idea of just ignoring a known significant cause of distortion.
1 Like
I wonder if the lateral compliance of the cartridge is a big factor in whether this kind of arm makes sense?