I have to agree with tima... I love the look of the Stabi R in the wood plinth too
I'd love to have the opportunity to hear that set up!Best wishes,
Don
What turntables do you use? Pictures would be nice as well :-)
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I'd love to have the opportunity to hear that set up!Best wishes,
Don
Wowza, that's a nice collection of gear! I would love to hear how do the various tables compare with each other?
Best wishes,
Don
Great looking turntable/plinth!Technics SP10 MK2.
Restored, re-finished in a piano black powder-coat, custom plinth in Nero Ebony veneer, SME V-12 arm, Benz Ref3 cart. In my office system:
Thanks!
Great learning experience in restoring the unit. The fun continues in trying to decide what second arm to use for a mono cart setup.
I have a couple of arms, I just need to pick up a nice cart.
Boxes filled with arms waiting to be mounted to my Garrard 401 when it arrives finally, hopefully right before Thanksgiving. Deciding between a Schröder CB-L, SME 3012R and a Bokrand Banana AB-309
I couldn't help myself so I set up the Bokrand with the Well Tempered. Sounds great!
I've always been intrigued by the WT "golf ball" tonearm and its endless rave reviews.
With this in mind, I was thinking that you might have a very hard time bettering this highly unconventional WT arm.
Any early listening impressions of the good-looking new BOKRAND versus the original WT tonearm?
Yeah, I have to say it's not a night and day difference. I think the golf ball arm has a nice overall easy to listen to quality. Not over detailed. Lots of bass. But the Bokrand does knit the soundstage together more organically and precisely which is immediately noticeable. Does that make it clearly a better arm? Not completely. It's really nice though. I know a guy in Asia that makes a knock off of the top of the line golf ball arm that I'm thinking of getting just for fun to use as an alternate arm on the 401.
Very good intel. Appreciated.
I suspect that the WT GOLFBALL design has a big advantage with its suspended unipivot design - but many of the advantages will be offset by the silicone gel required to gain stability - ultimately causing a loss of detail.
(Having tried Silicone oil in our TT bearing bath, I can fully attest to its incredible dampening qualities… Definitely not for us!)
Nevertheless, the WT golf ball tonearm remains a stellar piece of design ingenuity.
Same can be said for our new tonearm, the WAND PLUS by DESIGN BUILD LISTEN of New Zealand.
Built around an incredibly rigid - medium mass - large diameter carbon fibre tube, the WAND PLUS sounds nothing like we expected it to. All the detail is there - but presented in an utterly relaxed and natural manner.
If you don’t mind a lot of initial manual fettling - VTF, VTA and azimuth - perhaps the WAND PLUS is another arm to try?
A few recent pics…
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I find that if you keep the golf ball just barely touching the silicone bath, the detail/stability is great.... depending on the cartridge. But I've been using a variety of vintage cartridges lately which aren't very forward sounding and the match has been lovely. My AnaMighty DL103 sounded super detailed before I bent the stylus and had to send it off for a rebuild.
All this said, the workmanship of the Bokrand is excellent and it's a pleasure to use. It's a treat to have cueing after the WT and before that a VPI Fatboy which had such embarrassing bad cueing for a $4k arm that I just took the mechanism off.
All this said, the workmanship of the Bokrand is excellent and it's a pleasure to use. It's a treat to have cueing after the WT and before that a VPI Fatboy which had such embarrassing bad cueing for a $4k arm that I just took the mechanism off.
Congratulation to your The Wand!!!!
Currently I am playing around with The Wand Master tonearm, a lot to learn
(the turntable is a 12" STST Motus II DQ direct drive in the glossy black Corian Plinth)
I actually never performed a direct comparison of the three turntables in the main system because it was requiring moving a lot of components around which is something I am always afraid of as I can be clumsy at times.
I did a direct comparison of the "black" TD 124 against the balance a while ago and to my surprise the differences were not that huge. I had two exact same copies of the same LP and launched them simultaneously on the two turntables that were sitting side by side. Whereas their rotation speeds were exactly identical, I had the feeling that the Thorens was actually faster with more beat. The Balance was more neutral with a sense of authority, details and nuance that the Thorens was lacking.
Anyway, the Balance is having its last days in the system as it will leave this weekend to another destiny. Its replacement should hopefully arrive by Christmas.
And here's the Schröder CB-L. Sounds better than the Bokrand and the WT, as it should. But I'm still going to try a lot more tests once the 401 gets here with some more suitable cartridges for the Bokrand and the 3012R.
Thank you! I was trying to figure out how to build or where to buy and armpod yesterday and then I suddenly remembered a member that was building an idler and to test it out did the clamp thing! Disappointed it took me this long to figure it out...I love the vibe of your clamp mounted armboard!
For wood tonearm tube buy aluminium more neutral, for carbon brass nice colours of tone.
go to a metal processing company in your area, they will then drill the holes you need and give them a nice finish. cost around with material ~200-250€
Alu Aluminium Durchmesser 100 105 110 mm AlCuMgPb AW 2007 Rund Ronde Scheibe# | eBay
Aluminium Rundmaterial. AlCuMgPb / EN AW 2007. Legierung: AlCuMgPb / EN AW 2007. Sehr gut geeignet zum Bohren, Drehen und Fräsen. Bearbeitung Bohren/Drehen/Fräsen: sehr gut. Kanten entgratet. Schweißen: nur bedingt schweißbar.
www.ebay.de
Rotguss RG7 rund Ø 90mm Länge wählbar CuSn7 ZnPb Rundstange Stab Lagerbronze | eBay
Rotguss Rg 7 RundstangeØ 90mm (Fertigmaß) CuSn7 ZnPb Länge wählbar. Legierung: GC - CuSn7 Zn 4 Pb / CC 493 K. Rotguss Lagerbronze Strangguss. gute Dreh und Fräseigenschaften. Toleranzen: Länge ca. + 0,0 bis 2mm |.
www.ebay.de
P.s brass is heavy 110mm high×100mm ?arround 7.5kg
I've done something similar.
My 301 ca. '09.
As pictured, I was trying brass tonearm board/mounts as suggested by a couple of friends in Manila. But after a year, I reverted back to my plywood tonearm boards.
As pictured, I was trying brass tonearm board/mounts as suggested by a couple of friends in Manila. But after a year, I reverted back to my plywood tonearm boards.