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Tonearm, yes tonearms for record players.

DSJR

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I've blown hot and icy cold on the bloody fruitbox (LP12 :D). There's no denying that a good one carefully set up (believe me please, you can't just chuck one together as not all were made equal and even now, a tricky one comes through), can make listening to records a pleasure. What broke it for me was a direct comparison of disc vs the actual master tape (played on the machine) that made the record in the first place. Only a few years later,l when I heard a 'solid type' turntable costing half as much sounding more like my memories of the master (half inch., 30IPS, no noise reduction and ATR102 tape player) did I come back. I became a devotee of the intense pain and absolute pleasure that is Decca cartridge ownership (a Gold Microscanner which I still have after getting it repaired - they all seem to fail eventually). Linn to be fair, did some major structural upgrades to the plinth as well as bearing and so on in the early 90's and this improved the thing no end and of course the already high prices took off further to the point that the likes of me now look upon the donor-design-principle Thorens 150 with fresh eyes and ears (the two decks are scarily alike in so many ways despite obvious differences below the surface)...

Just a hunch, but I wonder if these close coupled arms put far more demands on their mounting plates or boards. I couldn't get my head around the recommendation to only nip up an original Rega RB300's fixing nut, where I used a proper sized spanner to very firmly tighten it.
 

Frank Dernie

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Very clever designs those Beograms and we sold loads in the 80's in various Beosystems (same chassis inside but different clothing depending on the system). I have a working 3000 from a much earlier 1972 generation, with SP12 cartridge, heavy cast sprung sub chassis and platter with rubbery concentric rings rather than the studded type that looked so space age at the time. Looks and sounds great, but too damned efficient really as the auto functions are rapid,only taking up half the main cam's rotation with each 'cycle.' - I want involvement from my vinyl gear, even the auto stuff, not a super efficient appliance ;)

I have a Dual 701 (in addition to a 601, souped up 1214, beloved 1019 and 1009sk2) which is my main deck (dry joint prone now, although I've recapped the power supply as instructed and done my best elsewhere) and it's happily partnered everything from a AT91 to a Koetsu Black and numerous Shure V15's, ADC's/Sonus Blue which I love), an Ortofon M20FL Super and the nicest compromise since my V15VMR was accidentally damaged is an AFC ZLM with new ADC stylus. I plonk a Notts Analogue Spacemat on top of the original which barely affects VTA negatively and records sound 'dead' through the speakers if tapped.

Note to Frank Dernie please - I'm probably still indoctrinated here by Linn, but 'we' were taught/brainwashed into thinking that everything should be tightly coupled as not doing so lost dynamics and sometimes smeared the overall effect - sometimes so, sometimes not it now seems. The Thorens 160/Basik Pus I'm playing with currently has been rebuilt much more sensitively, the bolts carefully nipped rather than crushed up (as I now do with LP12's I service) and sonically, it ain't bad at all. As for Garrards, I brought my AP76 down (flimsy looking headshell in Linn-speak) and have had a whale of a time fighting dried grease I thought I'd done (they put the bloody stuff everywhere - if it slides or pivots, ladle it on - and this deck came to me in original but seized condition some years back)

P.S. I have a discwasher brush like that still somewhere and I think the stylus brush as well, all from the mists of time..
I've blown hot and icy cold on the bloody fruitbox (LP12 :D). There's no denying that a good one carefully set up (believe me please, you can't just chuck one together as not all were made equal and even now, a tricky one comes through), can make listening to records a pleasure. What broke it for me was a direct comparison of disc vs the actual master tape (played on the machine) that made the record in the first place. Only a few years later,l when I heard a 'solid type' turntable costing half as much sounding more like my memories of the master (half inch., 30IPS, no noise reduction and ATR102 tape player) did I come back. I became a devotee of the intense pain and absolute pleasure that is Decca cartridge ownership (a Gold Microscanner which I still have after getting it repaired - they all seem to fail eventually). Linn to be fair, did some major structural upgrades to the plinth as well as bearing and so on in the early 90's and this improved the thing no end and of course the already high prices took off further to the point that the likes of me now look upon the donor-design-principle Thorens 150 with fresh eyes and ears (the two decks are scarily alike in so many ways despite obvious differences below the surface)...

Just a hunch, but I wonder if these close coupled arms put far more demands on their mounting plates or boards. I couldn't get my head around the recommendation to only nip up an original Rega RB300's fixing nut, where I used a proper sized spanner to very firmly tighten it.
I have been searching the internet for a little drawing of a simple mass/spring/damper dynamic system and its response but the only ones I see show response to excitation of the mass, which in the case of a seismic sensor (record player cartridge) is the wrong end, so I will try to explain.
The only thing the arm is actually needed for is to hold the cartridge body at the correct angles relative to the groove and apply the VTF, that is all.

The stylus is excited by the groove wall and if you plot the response from DC it basically starts off with the cartridge body moving exactly the same as the stylus (This is effectively what is happening as it traces the spiral groove. As the frequency increases towards the resonant frequency of the effective mass on the cartridge compliance the mass starts to move more than the excitation (stylus) and at resonance will be moving quite a bit more, depending on the damping (which is, of necessity in the wrong place since ideally the damper would be between groove wall and cartridge body not cantilever to body but a bit hard to do - one of the fundamental compromises of LP playback).
After the resonant peak the cartridge body displacement goes back down again until, at about double the system resonant frequency (depending on damping) the cartridge body becomes completely decoupled and from that frequency on up the cartridge body remains stationary relative to the stylus and the system starts accurately outputting a signal proportional to the groove movement.
If the system resonance is around 8 Hz (the lowest safeish choice) the output of the cartridge will be accurate from around 16 Hz up, if around 12Hz (common) it will be accurate from about 24Hz upwards. Below this the output is inaccurate and usually grossly exaggerated by an amount which depends on the damping and is best filtered out IMHO, though for some people more bass is better whether accurate or not :).
Theoretically from this frequency up the cartridge body (the stator in the transducer) remains stationary relative to the stylus and everything on the record will be accurately picked up (plus rumble).
Now NOTHING is rigid over the whole range of audio frequencies and a pickup arm will transmit vibration along itself as well as a piece of string once the frequency is well above its 1st mode, but well below that any vibration where it is bolted to the plinth will be transmitted directly along the arm to the cartridge body, which will therefore no longer be static with respect to the stylus and this vibration will cause an output which will be added to the wanted output.
The more rigid the coupling the higher up in frequency arm coupled vibration errors from the plinth will appear on the cartridge output.
Now maybe in some designs there isn't much vibration on the plinth at the arm mount, and clever engineering can definitely reduce it, but the stiffer it all is the greater the frequency range over which it will carry this vibration to the cartridge body and pollute the output.
So a stiff arm may not be much worse but there is nothing about it that will make the cartridge output more accurate and in real engineering terms it is likely to be always less accurate at getting the signal off the groove and into the phono stage. So it will never be better in the sense of more accurately transcribing the groove.
 

DSJR

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May be totally unrelated, but my experience is that some cartridges do seem sensitive to tonearm handling (often plastic body types), yet some metal bodied MC types I have here (albeit old ones now) seem totally silent if the same arm is handled. Maybe totally unrelated to the above so apologies if so.
 

Frank Dernie

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May be totally unrelated, but my experience is that some cartridges do seem sensitive to tonearm handling (often plastic body types), yet some metal bodied MC types I have here (albeit old ones now) seem totally silent if the same arm is handled. Maybe totally unrelated to the above so apologies if so.
Well yes, that is an extension of the old silly saying that all a record player has to do is rotate the record at 33 ⅓ rpm, which is true but it mustn't do anything else.
Arm handling giving cartridge output noise on plastic bodied cartridges is likely to be static related rather than mechanical. For the generator mechanism to pick up vibration when the stylus isn't touching anything would require some spectacularly bad engineering.
The shortcomings in record players are all unwanted additions. Rumble adds LF noise which isn't on the recording. Speed fluctuation causes pitch wobble. Resonances may add non-record related noise to the cartridge output.
Some of these don't sound too bad, mechanical and airborne pickup add a bit of extra reverb which may not be on the recording but may well sound nice.

The first job I was given when I started R&D on record players was to use the instrumentation to do a rumble measurement.
I was completely familiar with the Bruel and Kjaer measuring kit which I had been using for years but not for rumble. I struggled to get a consistent measurement - which is obviously why my boss got me to do it, it was for my education not the measurement.
The technician pointed out buses driving by when the reading was high...
Now, we were on the 4th floor of the factory building. The turntable was in a substantial plinth on an oak lab bench and the company carpark was between the building and the road so completely unexpected (by me).
To get reliable readings the TT had to be put on a sprung isolation block.
As soon as I had a house suitable I put my speakers in a different room to the system to avoid picking up vibration in my TT.
I didn't like the sound as much.
I have 4 turntables each one sounds different to the others all because of the FR and ways they respond to outside mechanical and airborne excitation.
My CD player doesn't do that :)
Record players can be fun because their shortcomings mean dicking about produces audible changes.
 

anmpr1

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The first job I was given when I started R&D on record players was to use the instrumentation to do a rumble measurement. The technician pointed out buses driving by when the reading was high...
Thanks for the interesting posts. I can hear the boss now:

"Well, Mr. Dernie. I guess you're just going to have to come to work at 1AM and finish up. Can't have these Routemasters and lorries muddling things, can we? Here's the key. Oh... and don't turn on too many lights. Cost of electricity and all. And no sleeping on the job...!"
 

Frank Dernie

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Thanks for the interesting posts. I can hear the boss now:

"Well, Mr. Dernie. I guess you're just going to have to come to work at 1AM and finish up. Can't have these Routemasters and lorries muddling things, can we? Here's the key. Oh... and don't turn on too many lights. Cost of electricity and all. And no sleeping on the job...!"
I guess avoiding this was why the technicians came up with the isolated block.
I suspect all record players produce a lot of junk below 20Hz by their nature which is why a steep high pass filter is essential.
 

DSJR

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My current 'handling' observation was partly due to my (too) careful arm pillar tightening procedure - using short end of Allen key and nip it up just so! In this case, 'just so' caused a slight rattle which was audible to the stylus. Looking around to see how the lateral bearings are fitted internally, I came across a little seen 'user manual' for this ersa of tonarms, which instructed me/us to use the short end of an Allen key initially, then to use the long-arm (ouch!) to add no more than 1/8th turn to lock it in place, this on what i was told is an 'Engineers Clamp' with two raised ridges in the mounting base to grip the pillar and an Allen bolt mid way up and on the opposite side. To be fair, there was a warning about over-tightening and subsequent bearing damage and anyone with experience of first generation Linn Akito arms will know exactly what I'm going on about as practically all the first batch were damaged by ignorant dealers, myself included!

Anyway, I did as asked, very careful with using the long end of the Allen key and lo and behold, the 'pillar rattle' rattle disappeared along with most of the 'microphony.' I'm convinced the 'sound' was ever so slightly better as a result. I wish I was doing this work daily rather than every so often, as without technical training and proper explanations, it's all acquired by feel and hopefully common sense.

This deck will have to be taken down soon and parts sold off and the arm returned to its rightful keeper (unless it's offered to me dirt cheap). After all my old lower caste decks, this one has been a great stepping stone to some of the higher realms of vinyl replay, which i still feel are not as truthful as decent digital although vinyl loving audiophiles prefer/demand the added colourations to give the 'sound' they crave. Thanks for reading this far anyway.. It's a bit like the male? fascination for steam trains and vintage cars perhaps...

As for isolation - replacing the three Thorens springs with rubber bobbins ruined the sonics and any tapping of the plinth became audible. As for rumble measurements, I remember being told that Technics with their early direct drives, used to suspend them from the ceiling on cotton or similar threads for rumble measurements, but have no proof of this apart from the domestic practicality of trying not to get the original SL1200 and classic looking SL110 I once owned to feed back (you could almost play tunes on the plinths with your fingers when playing, they were so 'live' back then, even with SME arms with rubbery grommets in situ - I thinkone answer was to place them in sand lined boxes or similar).
 
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Tom C

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Getting a new Gramaphone which doesn’t have a tonearm, I thought perhaps we could discuss the design criteria, any stand out designs or is simply one compromise versus another.
Keith
May I ask which turntable and tonearm were your final choice?
I was hoping a clearly superior tonearm choice would emerge from this thread.
 

Frank Dernie

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I was hoping a clearly superior tonearm choice would emerge from this thread.
All tonearms are a collection of compromises. The SME V is geometrically correct but is made from a single piece of material, which some people propose as a good thing, but it very much reduces internal damping.
You also can no longer buy it except on a SME turntable.
 

Angsty

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Reviving an older thread to ask a related question...

How concerned should I be about “play” in a gimbaled tonearm bearing and how much effort should be exerted into making it free of play?

I have two turntables with gimbaled bearings - a Pioneer PLX-1000 and a VPI Traveler. Much has been written elsewhere about the looseness of the PLX-1000 bearings and there is a bit out there about the Traveler (with sapphire bearings). I recently noted the play in both after some online reading.

I’m inclined to leave well-enough alone as I do not want to damage the bearings due to over tightening, but I question if I am taking the right approach. I’ve never heard anything off-putting that I’d attribute to either set of bearings, but then again, how would I know?

Any recommendations concerning fiddling with tonearm bearings?
 

Frank Dernie

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Reviving an older thread to ask a related question...

How concerned should I be about “play” in a gimbaled tonearm bearing and how much effort should be exerted into making it free of play?

I have two turntables with gimbaled bearings - a Pioneer PLX-1000 and a VPI Traveler. Much has been written elsewhere about the looseness of the PLX-1000 bearings and there is a bit out there about the Traveler (with sapphire bearings). I recently noted the play in both after some online reading.

I’m inclined to leave well-enough alone as I do not want to damage the bearings due to over tightening, but I question if I am taking the right approach. I’ve never heard anything off-putting that I’d attribute to either set of bearings, but then again, how would I know?

Any recommendations concerning fiddling with tonearm bearings?
There is a lot of stuff written about bearing quality and play.
If the "g" levels at the pivot never get above 1g (which it should not) the play will never be taken up so it shouldn't matter.
The idea of the arm needing to hold the cartridge still is correct as far as keeping alignment is concerned but at audio frequencies the thing keeping the cartridge body as the stator is the dynamics of the system not the statics so again rigidity shouldn't be at issue unless there is a resonance with an antinode at the headshell, in fact the more rigid the arm the higher up the frequency range plinth vibration will be carried to the headshell and appear in the cartridge output.
There is a lot of static "thinking" being used in the description of how record players work in magazines and the 'net and most of it is incorrect because it is the dynamics which determines the performance at audible frequencies.
I wouldn't modify or adjust it myself.
 

Angsty

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Thanks, @Frank Dernie. Your description of “static” vs. “dynamic” thinking about bearing movement helps me to better understand a quote from Harry Weisfeld about the Traveler bearing in the Stereophile review:


Experts like Frank are why I find this forum to be superior to the vast number of other forums out there. Many thanks!
 

Robin L

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Well yes, that is an extension of the old silly saying that all a record player has to do is rotate the record at 33 ⅓ rpm, which is true but it mustn't do anything else.
Arm handling giving cartridge output noise on plastic bodied cartridges is likely to be static related rather than mechanical. For the generator mechanism to pick up vibration when the stylus isn't touching anything would require some spectacularly bad engineering.
The shortcomings in record players are all unwanted additions. Rumble adds LF noise which isn't on the recording. Speed fluctuation causes pitch wobble. Resonances may add non-record related noise to the cartridge output.
Some of these don't sound too bad, mechanical and airborne pickup add a bit of extra reverb which may not be on the recording but may well sound nice.

The first job I was given when I started R&D on record players was to use the instrumentation to do a rumble measurement.
I was completely familiar with the Bruel and Kjaer measuring kit which I had been using for years but not for rumble. I struggled to get a consistent measurement - which is obviously why my boss got me to do it, it was for my education not the measurement.
The technician pointed out buses driving by when the reading was high...
Now, we were on the 4th floor of the factory building. The turntable was in a substantial plinth on an oak lab bench and the company carpark was between the building and the road so completely unexpected (by me).
To get reliable readings the TT had to be put on a sprung isolation block.
As soon as I had a house suitable I put my speakers in a different room to the system to avoid picking up vibration in my TT.
I didn't like the sound as much.
I have 4 turntables each one sounds different to the others all because of the FR and ways they respond to outside mechanical and airborne excitation.
My CD player doesn't do that :)
Record players can be fun because their shortcomings mean dicking about produces audible changes.
Record players can be fun because their shortcomings mean dicking about produces audible changes.

Yes, I remember that. At a certain point, those audible changes drove me away from LPs. But I think I'm recovering.

Interesting reading about all these tonearm designs, and how much they have meant to me over the years. I was turned on to the Grace 707 tonearm in the mid 1970s. A classical radio program was sponsored by a high-end audio shop and there was an on-air demonstration of the same piece of music [Chopin Etudes, op. 10, Agustine Anevias, Seraphim (noisy) transfer], same turntable and cartridge, swapping out the arm. Even through compressed and distorted FM the difference in sonic quality could be spotted. I eventually got 3 of those Grace 707 arms [fitted to AR XA 'tables] and about 10 copies of the Chopin. Hard to find a good transfer of that Great recording.
I also had a Strathclyde 305M with a SME III arm, worked great with the Shure 97xE, eventually wore that turntable out.
 

raindance

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Many years ago, I had an Ariston RD40 turntable and I used two different arms - an Infinity Black Widow and an SME 3009 series II. I tried a number of cartridges, but the best outcome seemed to be using the Audio Technica AT150MLX for both arms. I did try a Grado, but had to add oil damping to prevent it dancing off the records :) I could never extract much bass using either arm (I used Luxman and NAD electronics at various times).

Eventually I got sick and tired of fiddling with the silly wobbly suspension on the Ariston as well as the limitations on cartridge choice enforced by the arms and replaced it with a Rega Planar 2 which tracked great with both the Grado and the AT as well as some lower compliance moving coils. The old Rega 2 had nice bass and the early iteration of their straight arm was a pleasure to use and well built.

Then I moved to America and sold all my record-related stuff :)

My point is that a Rega arm might be the low hassle choice and accommodates a wide range of cartridges.
 

Frank Dernie

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I have a Rega arm on one of my turntables. It is a good bit of engineering IMO but being made in one piece it has almost no inherent damping and is quite a stiff design so any plinth vibration will be transferred to the headshell up to a higher frequency and the arm resonance rings for a long time.
I have always been slightly bemused by one piece arm tubes, the original marketing BS was to make them stiffer, which it doesn't.
 

Phorize

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My two favorite tonearm makers, SME and Jelco, no longer sell separate tone arms.

Luckily I have one of each, but my go-to recommendations for after market tone arms are no longer valid.


I got what was probably the last m2 12r ever sold individually to a consumer. I have no idea what the technical merits of it are beyond what is mentioned in the manufacturers spec sheet but it looks like the dogs doodahs on my stone age Garrard so who cares!
 

AudioSceptic

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Record players can be fun because their shortcomings mean dicking about produces audible changes.

Yes, I remember that. At a certain point, those audible changes drove me away from LPs. But I think I'm recovering.

Interesting reading about all these tonearm designs, and how much they have meant to me over the years. I was turned on to the Grace 707 tonearm in the mid 1970s. A classical radio program was sponsored by a high-end audio shop and there was an on-air demonstration of the same piece of music [Chopin Etudes, op. 10, Agustine Anevias, Seraphim (noisy) transfer], same turntable and cartridge, swapping out the arm. Even through compressed and distorted FM the difference in sonic quality could be spotted. I eventually got 3 of those Grace 707 arms [fitted to AR XA 'tables] and about 10 copies of the Chopin. Hard to find a good transfer of that Great recording.
I also had a Strathclyde 305M with a SME III arm, worked great with the Shure 97xE, eventually wore that turntable out.
Good stuff. How did you mod the XA to take the Grace? Any photos? I've fitted a Rega RB300 to my XA.
 

AudioSceptic

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Many years ago, I had an Ariston RD40 turntable and I used two different arms - an Infinity Black Widow and an SME 3009 series II. I tried a number of cartridges, but the best outcome seemed to be using the Audio Technica AT150MLX for both arms. I did try a Grado, but had to add oil damping to prevent it dancing off the records :) I could never extract much bass using either arm (I used Luxman and NAD electronics at various times).

Eventually I got sick and tired of fiddling with the silly wobbly suspension on the Ariston as well as the limitations on cartridge choice enforced by the arms and replaced it with a Rega Planar 2 which tracked great with both the Grado and the AT as well as some lower compliance moving coils. The old Rega 2 had nice bass and the early iteration of their straight arm was a pleasure to use and well built.

Then I moved to America and sold all my record-related stuff :)

My point is that a Rega arm might be the low hassle choice and accommodates a wide range of cartridges.
IMO the RB250 and RB300 were unbeatable for the money, and their descendants probably still are.
 
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