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Need tonearm advice...Empire 980 vs Empire 990

I'm using an Empire 980 tonearm with an Excel ES-28 cartirdge. There is no data available that I can find on the Excel, but I'm guessing it's medium compliance. The stylus I'm using specifies 1 to 3 grams and I'm tracking at about 2.9. Sound is fine as is performance on a test lp. The problem is that I'm blowing through styli. Why? Because after about four to six months, the cantilever is bent as though the arm is skating in hard toward the label. My Empire 980 is the anti-skate version, so I've tried adding more anti-skate and installed a fresh stylus. We'll see what happens. I suspect, however, that the real issue is that this arm is way to heavy for the rather compliant Excel cartridge. Thus said, a friend of mine has an Empire 990 tonearm. He says he will trade me. So my question is that I am wondering if anyone knows if this would represent an improvement in terms of synergy. Is the 990 arm that much lower mass than the 980? It looks very similar. Thanks!


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Topic - Need tonearm advice...Empire 980 vs Empire 990 - Mr Blue Sky 21:30:45 01/17/17 (12)

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