Early reviews of our upgrades to rega tonearms were fairly ecstatic. Next came the launch of the Silver tonearm which was hailed as “probably the best arm in the world” but at a fraction of the cost of high end models. Not content with this, Origin Live went on to launch the Encounter, Illustrious, Conqueror and Enterprise. These subsequent tonearms represented very significant levels of improvement over previous turntable arms which were already world class leaders. The level of improvement over older and established references is dramatic and makes upgrading a highly worthwhile investment. Unlike cartridges, a tonearm upgrade will produce a far more profound improvement and last a lot longer. It is also transferable to other turntables should you ever decide to change in the future.

Origin Live tonearms bring stunning improvements. In fact even the lower tonearms in our range outperform arms at many times their price.

Why choose an Origin Live arm

The design of our arms is the key to their performance - it doesnt matter so much that over 20 years of continuous development has gone into these arms - if the designers are not true "outside the box" thinkers, then the product will be nothing special. The truth is that Origin Live arms are extremely advanced, not only in concept but also in the choice of superior build materials. They do not employ cheap soft cast aluminium - instead aircraft alloys are employed. Again cheap, easy to finish stainless steel is avoided wherever possible because of its poor sonics and high grade alloys used instead. These alloys are very expensive to use and finish but are so worthwhile in terms of performance.

These factors are easily overlooked as most arms look the part on the outside. With an Origin Live arm however you can be sure that its not just a matter of build quality but far more importantly you have a design that really delivers in terms of performance.

Tonearm philosophy

Much of the design philosophy and reasons behind the superiority of Origin Live tonearms is discussed in our brochure System Philosophy & upgrading.To save repetition, please refer to this first as it is an important introduction.

Radical design

De-coupling the armtube

To give an example of the way that Origin Live “break the mould” with design, you only have to observe the “floated bearing” philosophy that is employed in the tonearms. Origin Live bearings are highly specified to suit tonearms - however the bearing houses are deliberately not machined to a tight tolerance as this degrades up the sound to an intolerable degree. We have found that tightly held bearings are not beneficial but this is easily confused with “bearing play”. There are very strong technical arguments to suggest that tightly coupling the arm to the deck via tight bearings is detrimental in the light of listening tests. These confirm that once you house the bearings outside the arm tube, it is best to “float” them rather than “grip” them in a tight fitting housing. People hypothesise about bearing chatter etc - maybe this is the case with high resonance arm-tubes and lower quality bearings. However listening soon shows up that there is absolutely no bearing chatter in any of our arms - in fact resonance in our arms is so minimal that it’s extremely difficult to measure in terms of amplitude or deflection.

Minimising ripple effects

Another factor which indicates “floating” the arm tube to be a good idea is that unipivots and knife edge bearings work on this principle. Vibration transmits through the surface which supports the tonearm in various ways. Most significant is “rippling” - not just a simple 1 or 2 dimensional movement as some imagine. Ripple exerts twist or angular force into the structure.
The mechanism of ripple is seen dramatically with very fast frame photography taken inside ships undergoing underwater explosive shock. When a mine explodes under a ship, the inside becomes a death trap of flying fittings that have become detached due to the underwater shock wave. Anything attached to a side wall or part of the ship structure detaches at speeds of up to 600Km/hour. The reason this happens is due to the shock waves setting up ripple in the ship structure and side walls.
In the micro vibration that occurs in analogue replay, ripple effects are very important. Unipivots are rigidly grounded in one sense but decoupled completely from ripple effects - However and it is a big “however” - they cannot hold the cartridge well against torsion exerted by bass notes. Widely spaced conventional bearings reduce ripple effects as do floated bearings. However they have the added benefit of holding the cartridge rigidly which results in a more dynamic bass performance.

Low Friction bearings

The Silver tonearm and upwards use special low friction bearings that improve in specification right up to the ceramic bearings used in the Conqueror. Long and intensive research has been invested in bearing design as it plays a very significant role in sound quality. The influence of bearing friction is surprising and can only be put down to the fact that it not only allows improved tonearm tracking but more importantly minimizes environmental vibration from affecting the arm. This effect can be likened to putting the tonearm on ice. The ice can ripple but due to low friction and inertia the tonearm is affected much less in terms of vibration and motion.

Excellent conductivity

The quality of cable required to transmit the extremely low level of signals generated by cartridges needs to be of the highest calibre. Origin Live has invested exhaustive research into this critical area over many years and have developed the best sounding cable possible.

Attention DJ's

Please see pages on OL1 tonearm for DJ's & notes on fitting arms to Technics DJ decks