Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

Frogman
re: Torquing of bolts. I own a few torque wrenches, big ones for auto + the mini torque wrenches we can use for this audio hobby. The issue I have with them is that the torque settings for these random bolts are meant for the nut/bolt, and not the part that they are holding in. The people who sell us these bolts have no idea what we are screwing them into. 
So along with what you were saying, there is this torque wrench in my head for this tonearm that has three settings - loose, snug and tight. I have never had anything go "loose" on the snug setting. But did crack the end cap many years ago on the tight setting. The most important bolt settings imo, are those that set the distance gap for the VTA bearing block.

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re:Cleaning robot.
I keep seeing these things in the flyers that come to the house. If I brought in that cleaning robot, turned it on and and let it go on our main floor I think I would have two different reactions, especially if a big purpose of the cleaning is to vacuum up the dog hairs. .

If my daughters RCA Victor dog "Lucky" was visiting, (half Mexican/half English) Chihuahua / Jack Russell mix. He wouldn't stop chasing and yapping at the thing. A very loving attention craving dog, but when he barks, he doesn't stop and it can get annoying. He also sheds like crazy but otherwise a good watch dog. Warns me when I am home alone, if the Kids and wife are within 200 feet from the house and approaching.

With Koaltar our black Lab, its the opposite reaction. He has not been running with me with over winter as I run on a treadmill, so he has put on a few pounds - probably gone from 76 to 80lbs. He would probably just lay in the middle of the floor and let the robot keep bouncing off of him like he does with Lucky. Oh the black hairs... and the main floor is a cream colored ceramic floor.  

If one could put two Koaltars beside ones listening chair, you would have significant damping taking place. Maybe even enough to require a need to change out a leaf spring. :^)

The hobby shop has the foot long gleaming white I beams. Was trying to imagine what the cat would be thinking if she got a look at it.
  
Curious to found out how John's stock 2 spring I Beam, compares to his modded I beam using the Mag wand.
Cheers

Hi Harry I wanted to touch on something you said earlier.

My sub is crossed over at about 45 - 50 hz, but I don’t run the mains through the sub crossover. I run them full range. Canalis says they are only 3 db down at 39 cycles. I keep the sub volume dialed down quite a bit. I’m not looking for boom, boom, just a nice foundation. The sub is a Sunfire True that has enormous power but is not quite as tight as I would prefer. Been thinking about a Rel, but that’s down the priority list. I did have to dial down the sub after my tweaks and once I got the VTA right.

I have the exact same objective in my room 2 Harry, meaning just filling in the bottom octave. I have My Quad 57’s running full off the Music Reference amp. Positioned in the room as they are in the system pic, they are good to about 55hz. I have two Dynaudio subs which kick in at 60hz. They receive a separate direct input from the preamp (happens to be an AI - no remote ! ) in that room.

Wanted to mention, more of a general comment from my experiences. I have spoken with a number of sub manufacturers over the years the earliest, many moons ago was Dr.Hsu, and the most recent Rythmik Audio, a little over a year ago about the use of one sub in a room. They have all told me the same thing and my own room setup in B prior to going to dual subs was one large one; my experiences confirm it as well.

For 2 channel music nearfield placement is best if crossing over low. The sub is positioned ....if and if the room, wife, boundaries permit it..... beside or behind your listening position. It may seem unorthodox but your sub will work at a fraction of the effort it needs when it is across the room. Just set the phase at 180. An easy way to determine if the phase is correct. Put on music with bass, put your hand on the nearfield sub - you can feel the sub pulse and determine if it is in sync with the bass you are hearing at your listening position with the main speakers bass. very obvious with this technique - if it is out of phase.

When I had one sub in that room, and had people over, I would camouflage the nearfield sub and have them tell me where the bass notes were coming from. They would point to some spot over behind the Quad speakers. They found it hilarious when I told them the notes were coming from the box that their glass was resting on, next to them.

Having brought in the Dynaudio subs I will say that anyone that is thinking of using two subs across a good sized room - I would for myself insist in making sure the sub design comes with a remote for the different controls especially Db gain. Music even within the same genres is mastered at varying gain levels of bass. The subs I use have 4 presets that can be used.
Cheers Chris

Hi Chris and Harry,
I worked on the mods to the arm yesterday, but had to leave for dinner with the family before listening. -That's today, and I'll get back about my impressions later on.
I found out that the spring I've been using is a double, and was worried about using a shorter I-beam, as I also traded in my original magnesium arm for an updated one from Bruce which is heavier. -Got a good deal by the way!
So, I decided to try adding a third spring to my homebrew I-beam, my cartridge being fairly low compliance and mc.
 I had a problem with the new wand. The phono connectors are slightly loose. -They slide a bit. Should I pinch them down to get them tighter? I don't want to crush these little connectors, because that's happened before with a different wand and connectors. -A big mess to fix.
-On to woofers. My Wisdom speaker system uses two woofer cabinets crossed over at 120hz. I suppose that because they cross over so high, the designer recommends placing the front face of each one even with the dipole line sources.
One advantage with the electronic crossover is that I can adjust the volume at the lower end (20 hz and below), the volume at the crossover point, and the output of the woofer and dipoles separately. This is handy on certain recordings, but no remote control of any of this; just 4 attenuators per channel.
Cheers and thanks in advance for comments and sage advice,
John

I'm with you.  I was flattered to hear I test for best phase adjustment like you do.  Hand on sub driver while listening to bass passages.  I know that below a certain frequency (probably 60 to 75 hz) sound is almost directionless.  Well, the sound is not directionless but our ear/brain interface is unable to determine direction.  For this reason, crossed over low enough, one can place a sub just about anywhere without it calling attention to its location.  

The room/wife consideratons are, however, quite another issue.  For me to place my sub beside or behind my listening sofa would entail running cables under carpet which gets walked on (not good) or be ugly.  ("Do you really need those wires running across the room?").  

As you, no doubt saw from my system pictures, my Sunfire sub is behind my left main speaker.  It has both an active and passive radiator.  The active faces inward, across the front wall and toward the center and the passive points in the opposite direction.  When setting it up I was surprised that best response is 180 deg. out of phase.  My sub has a variable phase setting from 0 to 180.  For a while I thought 90 deg. was best but 180 is stronger.

Connections are from my power amp to the high level inputs on the sub. This for two reasons:  I have read that this setup is best for matching subs to mains, and I only have one set of outputs on my preamp.  Just for comparison, I tried a  Y connection at the  power amp inputs to the low level inputs on the sub but for some reason this resulted in a very ugly hum.  Either the pre or power amp did not like this setup.  

I am not perceiving an issue with integrating the sub with the mains, I would just like it to be a little tighter.  I think this is simply an issue with the quality of the sub itself.  I think Bob Carver uses a class D amp in his subs and while the Sunfire True Sub is no slouch it is certainly not the caliber of my Canalis Cambrias.  Speaking of which, I think you mentioned in a prior post you were not familiar with the Cambrias.  The Canalis speakers are a product of Spiral Groove.  They are designed by Joachim Gerhard who used to manufacture the German Sonics Alegra speakers.  Joachim has now joined Alan Perkins at Spiral Groove.  The Canalis speakers are virtually the same as Joachim's Sonics speakers but manufactured from bamboo plywood with tweaks to the crossovers.  You can see the whole Canalis line here: http://www.canalisloudspeakers.com/loudspeakers.php

The Sunfire was originally purchased for my home theater back when I had a Vandersteen 2W for the music system.  For some inexplicable reason I sold the Vandy woofer.  One of my larger buy/sell mistakes.  The 2W's mate very well with monitors and small towers.

Two of my obsessions in listening are imaging and detail.  I have found that monitors and narrow tower speakers do this best.  The Cambrias are basically a couple of monitors in a tall box.  The drawback is, of course, they don't move quite enough air.  Hence my use of the sub.  

All things considered, I think my best setup would be two small to medium size subs.  I've been looking at the Rel T5i an T7i. The 5's are a little short on power but given my listening habits they may be enough.  They probably would not work for your large orchestral productions, but then you always have room A for that.

Best,
Harry

PS to my above post: It seems that the spindle on the ET-2 is anodized aluminum.
I held a magnet to it and found NO attraction. Duh!  So, how does mounting a cabinet magnet under the spindle provide any appreciable damping?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Sorry,
John