About ViV Lab
“I threw every cartridge I had on hand at this arm, and each one of them sounded as good as or better than they ever have.”
South of the capital Tokyo lies the beach-side city of Kamakura Japan, home to ViV Laboratory, manufacturers of the Rigid Float tonearm. The company is the brainchild of engineer and founder Koichiro Akimoto, who founded ViV lab in 2008. The primary goal of his tonearm design is to eliminate all unwanted resonance during playback for maximum sonic clarity. The ViV Lab Rigid Float tonearm achieves its goal by embracing radical design choices and unconventional materials. The result is an elegant tonearm that will allow your phonograph cartridge to perform at its very best.
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The ViV Lab Rigid Float tonearm is available in aluminum or carbon fiber versions, and in 7 inch, 9 inch, and 13 inch lengths. The weighted base of the tonearm comes in a metallic black (pictured above) or gold finish. All ViV Lab Rigid Float tonearms come with the specially designed “Nelson Hold” headshell, which uses a center stabilizing pin to provide further rigidity to the cartridge.
Three main design principals make the ViV Labs Rigid Float tonearm special:
First, the tonearm is free-standing. It does not physically attach to your turntable, which means it is not directly coupled to any source of vibration or noise. Its weighted, non-slip base is designed to provide perfect mechanical isolation. This characteristic also means the arm is compatible with a wide range of turntables as a primary or secondary tonearm, with no drilling necessary.
Second, the tonearm uses a proprietary magnetized oil in the bearing mechanism. Arguably the most critical goal of tonearm design is elimination of friction in the bearing. The material used in the Rigid Float, sometimes referred to as ferro-fluid, is nearly friction-free when placed in a magnetic field. The oil also acts as a damper against acoustic vibration, further enhancing clarity and transient response.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the tonearm uses zero-offset geometry, making resonance optimization the top priority. The trade-off is higher tracking error at the beginning of the disc, but the advantage is the elimination bias force, making anti-skate unnecessary. Groove modulation is never constant across the face of a record, yet conventional tonearms force the user to choose a fixed anti-skate force, placing the cartridge into a state of constant entropy during playback. The ViV Labs Rigid Float completely resolves this issue, allowing your cartridge to track with perfect lateral stability. Subtle details and textures that would otherwise be lost to resonance are reproduced clearly and beautifully.
