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Re: I Was Kind Of Thinking the Same Way...

Todd and others are giving you excellent advice. While coming from the Teres project to start up Redpoint Audio Design, I have my bias toward the Audio Advancements Eurokit / Teres / Redpoint family of 'tables. You are certainly not limited to these. VPI, Oracle, and Basis are excellent rigs.

I would say that getting an unsuspended 'table however like the above three will certainly free you of one setup parameter to adjust. Additionally, with an unsuspended rig, the solution to your stand is mass, and lots of it. You can purchase a granite machinists' surface plate delivered to your door for under $100 and be done. You can certainly get more sophisticated than this if you choose. E-mail me privately, or search the last few weeks on this forum for the URL to the tool supplier with the deals on the surface plates.

Should you ever decide to play with a linear tracking arm, the absence of a suspension will allow a predictable setup. Suspended tables, OTOH require careful matching of stand to springs. Linns, Merrills, and AR's like light and rigid. Thorens like mass. I'm not certain about Oracles, but expect to learn about them in the next month. As competent as the Linn's are, I don't want to see you at the mercy of a Linn dealer to perform your setup (they have a way of mystifying the suspension tuning that never sat well with me when I oned my Linn - they treat setup as a sales opportunity).

Turntable setup has been mystified. There are some good FAQ's out there in places like the Analog Addicts archives and such. We're planning on putting a setup section on our website, if we can ever find the time to develop it.

I would say, that as long as you're not "all thumbs", setup can be learned quite easily. Certainly, having a few choice tools will prevent much aggravation and possible expensive mistakes. For example, when applying / removing the cartridge leads, a forceps or other fine gripping tool is essential to preventing snapping the cartridge wires. If you're patient, and have a few simple tools, it's not rocket surgery (or is that brain science?). It might pay to start with a $50 Grado cartridge. You won't cry over a snapped cantilever & you'll always have a spare cartridge after you upgrade.

This week, I took a look at the Graham setup jig & realized how difficult people make the process of dialing in a cartridge. The Graham solution is certainly elegant, but the way people make setup so difficult is mostly due to ignorance, and not to the actual difficulty of the task.

Granted, some rigs are easier to set up than others - stylus overhang adjustment comes to mind here. The Verdier style armboard that I instigated in the Teres project (and carried over to our Redpoint 'tables) is a case in point. The SME style adjustable track accomplishes this same end. The Graham is yet another.

The idea behind both the SME and the Verdier/Teres/Redpoint approaches is to permit you to change the overhang adjustment independently of the offset angle. In most adjustment setups, you have to loosen the headshell screws and try to slide the cartridge fore and aft in the slots in order to change the overhang. Invariably, you end up twisting the cartridge body ever so slightly, thereby changing the offset angle which in turn interacts with the overhang adjustment. This single adjustment can drive you crazy, but the Verdier / Teres / Redpoint arm mount, as well as the SME solution deals with this problem very neatly.

E-mail Peter or me offline if you have any further questions.

Cheers,
Thom


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  • Re: I Was Kind Of Thinking the Same Way... - Thom Mackris 11/14/0115:22:51 11/14/01 (0)


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