Tonearm Reviews

Sidebar 1: Vertical vs Horizontal

There seems to be some confusion in the audio industry as to just which tonearm pivot is which. Some writers identify the pivots according to whether their axis lies vertically or horizontally, others identify them according to the mode of arm motion that they are related to. For the record, we wish to state that we use the latter system. (After all, the axis of a unipivot needle is vertical, but the arm moves both vertically and horizontally about the pivot.) When we refer to the vertical pivots, we mean those pivots about which the arm moves vertically; horizontal (or lateral) pivots are those about which the arm swings from side to side.—J. Gordon Holt