Craigslist yet again

You occasionally meet the nicest people on here, tonight I met Henry.

  He came out to buy a decent Technics table I had listed, mentioned he had a "professional, or broadcast"  'table  in the closet, can't remember his exact verbiage, form a local recording studio here in town that went out of business years ago.

  Dragged it with him, and it turned out to be a  fuzzy dice Technics SP-10 mk II mounted in a custom shag carpet base. It had been mounted in a console at that studio. Not in perfect shape, but everything except one of the tonearm cables was there.

  Way cool, had the power supply, remote, a couple of arms, so I gave him the table I had plus some $$$.

  Works out this way sometimes, you are selling things but it costs you!

  Actually have never had one of these, not a huge direct drive fan (see my earlier posts), but curious to have fun with this.These are famous in their own way, and have a bit of a cult following.

  I will need to get a base, offered Henry the fuzzy dice base back, but he passed.

Seems to work fine, will keep you posted.

Reposting this from earlier, I submitted this to Stereophile magazine's "Letters". 

They published it in the September issue. Page 11, the first reader letter at the top left. 

They publish your email address, and I have gotten at least a dozen responses from other Stereophile readers.

Jeff B. noted also that the volume was set to 0.

Les E. asked if the guy was deaf, and commented that "Emotiva may make good products, but their name sounds like a drug for depression; "Ask your doctor if Emotiva is right for you"  

 Chris M. was sympathetic, and noted that the model was holding a CD in his right hand, might not be one in the player yet.

(LMAO again!).

 Ahhh, yes. We can be an arrogant bunch sometimes, I try not to be, but you have to have a sense of humor!

The same ad is still running, on page 16 of the same September issue.

The least they could do is Photoshop a cartridge in the table!

  Earlier post:

 From the June issue of Stereophile.

  Emotiva ad, see anything wrong? you may have to click on this for a closer look.

 The gentleman is apparently listening to a CD, the preamp is set to "phono direct".

  Also, there is no cartridge mounted in the turntable..........


   LMAO!

20 tonearm entries.....

Probably missed a few. Have you had enough of tonearms? I could go on.....

I think next, maybe I will discuss the different types of cotton swabs for cleaning tape decks, Q tips vs the CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Walmart, generic varieties.


No, I am not as obsessed as you might think.......

Transcriptors Vestigal

Ahhh! The best for last! This is without a doubt the weirdest, most finicky, difficult to set up and least compatible arm  that was ever created! The pivot is at the headshell, a string follows back to the counterweight, horizontal mass is one tenth what the vertical is, and I don't think there was ever a high compliance enough cartridge ever made to work with this! Supplied as standard equipment on their Skeleton table (see my earlier posts), this was also available separately. I think the whole arm is about 8 inches long, and I use an ADC XLM cartridge with it, as close as I can find to compatible. Several thumbscrews 

adjust it, and you can spend several hours on this only to repeat it all the next night!

Irish, thinking the guy that designed it was totally sober (or high), laughed in his sleep at all the people who weren't completely sober attempting to use it!

Rabco

   Pretty much the invention of the linear tracking arm as we know it, this "clunker" is still coveted by many today. Powered by a C cell battery, a ball chain moves the arm across a channel with rollers determined by a metal "whisker" that makes contact as the arm is drawn in.These seem to hold up forever, with minor maintenance.

 I still have one of these, not really sure what to do with it.

 Harmon Kardon bought the rights to it a few years later and used it on some integrated 'tables, the ST-7 being the most famous.

Denon DA-307/401

  One of my first separate arms, weird in that it has a rubber decoupler forward of the pivot point. Rigidity is a key to information extraction in a tone arm, this makes it well, rubbery! Never understood this. Understand damping, vibration, resonance, etc. Not thinkin' this was ever the best idea....... DA-401 (not pictured) was the complete opposite. Never owned one. Carbon Fiber, lower mass, more conventional.

Saec

  Another high quality and extremely popular Japanese arm, double knife edge bearings  like the earlier SMEs and Black Widow.Fairly long, fairly heavy. Not for most suspended subchassis tables, unless you plan to do some serious tweaking.

Mission 774

  Another idiosyncratic English arm, bare bones, and wonderful! Definitely difficult to set up, plug in connector requires all kinds of extra steps.No tonearm rest!  A strong commitment to the arm/ table marriage. I have this mounted on my remaining Oracle Delphi, and will never be parting with it! A wolf in sheep's clothing, magical!

Lustre GST-801

                                         Extremely massive Japanese arm, way too heavy for most floating subchassis 'tables. Ironic that the picture above shows it on an Oracle Delphi! Definitely would need to modify the suspension springs!   Good bearings, excellent machining and engineering, again, best suited for low compliance cartridges.

Moerch

 Not a huge fan of unipivots, but if I had to pick one it would be this. The lowered counterweight makes this stable enough that it does not just "wallow around" in the grooves. A Danish company,  they are very respected in just about every country in the world. Different colored dots on the arm wands identify the mass of the wand, and even though this looks low mass you can successfully use it with a low compliance moving coil. Mine was a UP-6 "yellow dot", and I was very impressed by the build quality. Very good sounding arm! Also has "eyes".

Micro Seiki

  Micro has made numerous arms, probably more so in Japan. The most popular imported here being the MA-505 pictured above. Dynamically balanced (like a Dual or Linn Ittok), this uses a coiled spring to apply stylus pressure. This is almost over engineered. Fairly massive, best suited to heavier cartridges.

Helius

                                      Helius is an English company that has remained dedicated to analog for a number of years. they have offered a few different arms, mostly upper end, very high quality. I still have this Scorpio, it has "eyes". Fixed headshell, no detachable cable, this is an arm you "commit to". Makes any 'table look better!

Grado

                                    Grado were famous in the '50s. for their wooden tone arm, this is the only other arm to my knowledge that they offered. The Grado Signature arm looks a bit like a roller coaster, with a huge downward sweeping tube that precluded the use of dustcovers on most 'tables. Loved this arm, and would still like to find another some day. In Joe Grado's infinite wisdom, I still remember the first words in the instruction manual- "Don't be Stupid"!

Audioquest PT

   Audioquest was/is basically a cable company, and the basic difference in the PT 4/ 5/ 6/ 9 was in the cable supplied. The 9 was slightly different, believe this was made for them by the same factory that made the Sumiko arms.

Audio Technica/Signet

Signet was the audiophile division of Audio Technica, and the brand never existed in other countries, all the Signet arms were branded Audio Technica. The two arms offered here were the XK-50 and XK-35. The AT-1009 (bottom picture) was a broadcast standard for many years, Available both in 9 and 12 inch versions (AT-1012). Never a huge fan of the Signets, I still have a 1009 , and really like it except for the pneumatic cueing. A separate manual "pump" connected to an air hose requires an additional hole to be drilled somewhere on the table. Otherwise, a great basic arm.

J. H. Formula IV

                     One of the classic unipivot designs, popular in the late '70s to early '80s. Once again, you needed a fairly low mass, high compliance cartridge to get the best results. Still have one of these in my spare arm box, not really sure what to do with it.........

Infinity Black Widow

                      Another '80s classic, this is the exact opposite of the Syrinx. The original was carbon fibre, the newer versions were graphite, which ended up being so brittle they snapped! This "spaghetti stick" double knife edge bearing was probably more competition for the SME III  than anything. Best with an extremely low mass high compliance cartridge, although many people at the time would put Denon 103 moving coils in them. This of course was a total mismatch.

Syrinx PU-2/ PU-3

                        Considered at the time the only real competition for the Linn Ittok, this was a favorite on Linn tables, despite its strange geometry. The horizontal pivot point is located a few millimeters ahead of the vertical pivot point, as can be seen in the picture. Extremely difficult to set up, and the table being level is critical! If not, it will go skating in (or out) across the record. When set up properly, it is an excellent sounding arm. Works best with high mass cartridges, low output moving coils, etc. Still have the above version in gold finish, still one of my favorite arms.