Understanding the Clarity and Definition delivered by Dual Pivot Bearings

Dual pivot bearings are one of the many innovations which make Origin Live arms performance leaders. The design is similar in many respects to uni-pivots – low friction and high decoupling yield excellent definition and transparency. However, uni-pivots can be fiddly to set up and exhibit only mediocre bass performance because of their relative instability. Dual pivots have all the advantages of uni-pivots but none of the drawbacks.  Vertical movement of the arm is handled by the dual-pivot and horizontal movement by highly specified conventional bearings.

Handles like a conventional gimballed arm

The arm functions and handles in exactly the same way as a conventional gimballed arm. In other words, you do not need to worry about setting up an azimuth.  The azimuth is set at the factory (for those unfamiliar with the term, azimuth is the measure of headshell “twist” relative to the record surface).

How dual-pivot works

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The above illustration of the dual-pivot bearing shows the needle pivots resting in their cups and allowing the arm to pivot and thus allow vertical movement. The pivots are designed to reduce friction to an absolute minimum. In doing this there is a fine balance to achieve both a robust design whilst maintaining extremely low friction. In practice, the arm must have a slight degree of movement due to a sharp tungsten point in a shallow radius bearing cup.  The alternative to this is a very sharp point in a deep v-shaped cup (this would certainly restrain the movement of the point but would also increase friction and potential fracture of the tips).

The pivot points will “self-centre” by sliding into the bottom of the pivot cups.