Name: Vertere SG-II PTA
SKU: Vertere SG-II PTA
Availability: BackOrder

Vertere SG-II PTA

Vertere customers worldwide have called for a tonearm they feel more matches the SG-1 and RG-1 record players.

Although the words from the launch of the SG-1 PTA tonearms three years ago are still almost correct.

“The Vertere Super Groove Precision Tonearms utilise a combination of quality materials, including roll-wrapped carbon-fibre, stainless steel, aluminium alloys, brass and silicon nitride.

Its unique bearing design and versatile anti-skate adjustment make it an ideal partner for the highest quality cartridges and turntables”.

Never one to back down from pressure, Touraj set himself a target of a new tonearm with the performance approaching that of the Reference tonearm but something more affordable.

Key Improvements

New super-polished, aero-space-precision Silicon Carbide/Tungsten Carbide Tri-pivot bearing with ultra-low friction, stiction and noise

New Titanium Headshell with improved dynamic mass distribution

Heavier decoupled dual-axis stainless steel counterweight with adjustable outriders for easy azimuth adjustment

Austenitic stainless steel central pillar and bearing holder

Austenitic stainless steel pillar holder and clamp

VTA adjustment collar for easy adjustment and repeatability

New Bearing Yoke with bearing more in line with stylus tip

Improved and stiffer rolled carbon fibre tube to the headshell and bearing yoke joints

Improved dynamic centre of mass /centre of inertia

Improved armrest with arm lock for transit

The ‘Penguin’ transit spacer/lock

Existing innovations

Non-resonant, high-rigidity roll-wrapped carbon fibre arm tube.

Sliding effective mass /arm cartridge resonance/tracking weight fine-tuning adjuster

Bias-curve adjustable anti-skate mechanism.

Vertere HB internal wiring

Machined from solid PTFE Arm DIN connector with precision machined Vertere connectors

All connections are custom-manufactured and triple gold-plated.

The features in more detail

SG-II TPA tonearm bearing

The unique Tri-Pivot bearing consists of three super-round silicon nitride balls held captive in a precision-machined Acetal ball-retaining ring supporting the aerospace-precision machined Tungsten Carbide pivot.

The pivot point centred between the silicon nitride balls provides flawless support and articulation.

The new Tungsten Carbide pivot is machined and polished similarly to the RG-1 record player’s main bearing to deliver exceptionally low friction, stiction and noise.

Background to the TPA bearing design

At first sight, the SG-II PTA Tonearm may come across as a uni-pivot; it is anything but.

A uni-pivot will skate about on its bearing point of contact while the tonearm moves side-to-side and up and down.

There is no such thing as a point; one surface is supported by another and sliding relative to each other.

Because of this, there is always some skating of the contact point on the support bearing surface.

Although the skating or chatter may be in fractions of microns, so is the magnitude of some information stored in the vinyl groove.

To eliminate this loss of information due to unwanted bearing chatter, Touraj designed the Tri-pivot bearing.

Three silicon nitride precision balls and a super-precision machined tungsten carbide point provide the arm’s support and articulation.

Although the tonearm may appear to behave as a uni-pivot, it is without any bearing chatter, preserving as much signal information as possible.

The result is a lifelike dynamic response with unexpected clarity, musicality, and detail—genuinely significantly better than the SG-1.

SG-II Tonearm tube & headshell

Roll-wrapped carbon fibre is used to construct the arm tube.

This provides higher strength and a more homogenous fibre structure than a Pultruded or moulded equivalent.

The headshell is a new, re-engineered Titanium design with better dynamic balance.

It is connected to the arm tube using a new, structurally improved bonded alloy end insert.

This configuration’s naturally non-resonant and higher strength-to-weight ratio provide the optimum cartridge platform.

Aluminium Bearing yoke and Austenitic Stainless (316) Steel pillar

The super-precision Tungsten Carbide bearing pivot is structurally bonded to the new precision-machined aluminium alloy yoke.

The assembly provides the support required for the arm tube, the main counterweight and the anti-skate mechanism.

The pivot point and the counterweight centre of gravity are vertically positioned in line with the stylus tip for improved dynamic centre of mass and centres of inertia.

Arm/Cartridge resonance frequency & fine-tracking weight adjustment

An adjustable and decoupled stainless ring allowed to move along the arm tube provides fine tracking weight adjustment.

The relative position of this ring and the main counterweight can alter the arm/cartridge resonance frequency and thus optimise the cartridge’s playback performance.

SG Tonearm Main Counterweight

The dual-axis counterweight assembly is precision adjustable for tracking force and azimuth. Its width adds to lateral stability – think Charles Blondin crossing Niagara Falls

SG Tonearm Pillar Holder and Clamp

The precision machined stainless steel pillar is held in place with a new stainless high-precision gloss polished pillar holder and clamp to provide the tonearm/cartridge with the required interface rigidly coupled to the record player.

Internal Wiring & Contact Connectors

The cartridge tags and the 5-pin connector pins are designed, machined, and gold-plated to Vertere’s exact specifications for the SG-II PTA.

The 5-pin connector main body is CNC machined from solid PTFE for its superior dielectric characteristics.

Internal wiring utilises Pulse HB.

Bias-curve adjustable anti-skate mechanism

There is much debate about how to set anti-skate optimally.

The ideal setting is affected by tracking weight, record speed, stylus profile and record cut. But it’s the hi-fi business, so there are n+1 arguments about the correct philosophy.

The Vertere SG-II PTA allows the anti-skate to be set variably across the record – for example, greater at the outside or greater at the inner.

The optimal results are established by listening at the beginning, middle and end of a selection of records and choosing the best performance across all three positions.

Technical Specifications: Vertere SG-II PTA

Type Tri-pivot articulated

Effective Length 240mm

Overhang 17.5mm

Offset Angle 22.9°

Head-Shell Titanium

Arm Tube Wrapped Carbon Fibre

Bearing Yoke Structure Aluminium Body

Bearing Type Precision Captive Silicon Nitride Balls (x3) Tungsten Carbide point

Counter Weight High Polished Stainless Steel

Stainless Steel T/W Adj. Sleeve

Internal Wiring Pulse Hand-built

Connector Proprietary Cartridge Tags & 5-Pin

Triple Thickness Gold Plated Contacts

Tonearm Cable veRum

Weight 495g

Brand

Vertere Acoustics

Vertere Acoustics Reducing engineering to its fundamentals, to get you even closer to the original recording

When aiming to reproduce the complexities of music, it’s all too easy to introduce even greater complication in the engineering of audio equipment, putting in place one element to solve the problems of another until the whole design escalates into something fiendishly intricate – and expensive!

That’s not the Vertere way: coming at the whole problem with decades of audio and mechanical engineering experience, plus close collaboration with the recording and mastering industry, they step back, take a long hard look at the fundamentals, and look for simple, elegant solutions.

That may sound like a simple ‘less is more’ philosophy, but they prefer to look at it this way: the best audio equipment shouldn’t add anything to the original recording. Rather it should affect it as little as possible; bringing the listener ever closer to what the artist, producer and mastering engineer wanted you to hear.

Working with music industry professionals, they have access to master tapes and the acetates made in the production of records, and can compare the way the engineers heard them with the way they sound on their record players and via their cables. Vermeer Acoustics are constantly learning about how records are mixed, mastered, cut and pressed, and applying that knowledge to the way we design and build Vertere products.

The fundamentals of a record player are pretty much set in stone, in that a record needs to turn at a certain speed, and the stylus needs to follow the groove and allow the cartridge to convert its undulations into electrical signals with what is literally microscopic accuracy. However, just because those are the basics, that doesn’t mean there’s only one way to achieve them – which is why we take a long hard look, apply our ‘do no evil’ way of thinking, and endeavour to develop simpler, innovative solutions.

That’s why you’ll find their record players look different, both outwardly and in some of the engineering solutions you’ll probably never see. It’s all a matter of stripping down the engineering to those fundamentals by considering the absolute essence of how a record player works – from re-examining the way a cartridge gets its energy to ensuring it extracts maximum information from a groove that’s trying to throw it off track over a thousand times a centimetre.

So yes, the way they design and build their products is unique, but it’s not all about being eye-catching (even if we have to admit we think they look rather good): we hope you’ll find they sound just as unique, too, simply by bringing you even more of the music