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Fidelity Research FR-64x

 Fidelity Research FR-64x.....(with silver wire ).  Is this arm still considered  viable today ?

offnon57
invictus005
597 posts
 
IMO, silver is actually better when it comes to tonearm wire because of the low fragile cartridge signal. Tonearms with silver wire sound significantly more alive, dynamic, and louder, but without sounding bright. My favorite wire to use is actually van den Hul MCS150M. Great stuff.

Anyone paying $1000-$2000 for an FR64 variant, should really stop and think about what they're doing. For that price one can get a brand new SME 309 or a used SME V. 


sampsa55
73 posts
 
@invictus005
IMO, silver is actually better when it comes to tonearm wire because of the low fragile cartridge signal. 

Good copper has lower resistance than silver:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cg1003808


Anyone paying $1000-$2000 for an FR64 variant, should really stop and think about what they're doing. For that price one can get a brand new SME 309 or a used SME V.

I'm not making a claim about the relative quality of the tonearms in question, but neither of those SME models would actually be able to use the FR7 or SPU cartridges that for instance @nandric is intending to use with his FR64fx.


offnon57 OP
72 posts
 
just a note...I paid $150 probably 25-30 years ago
nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 

@sampsa55 , Thanks for enriching my tonearm collection with

FR-64 fx. I own both 64 S kinds in the sense of silver and copper

wire. I also own Ikeda 345 . Alas not FR64 fx. But I need to start with

 my Sumiko 800 (''the arm''). The arm is designed by physicist David

Fletcher and (hand) made by his master machinist Demian Davidson

from 160 parts. The curious things are: The arm looks like a Breuer

twin but while Breuer refused to make any additional counterweight

for his customers Fletcher designed 6 different counterweights for

his Sumiko. The reason being to provide the right weight for the

carts from 6- till 25 g. This way each individual cart could be adjusted

such that the counterweight would be as near as possible to the

pivot. This seems to be relevant for both: arm mass as well for

the inertia. Lew is very fond about Newton while ''mechanics'' is the

 best established  physical science. As lawyer I need to pretend

to know everything otherwise nobody would be willing to hire me.

In this forum and ''among friends'' I don't need to pretend. So I

hope ''our Lew'' will explain ''the mechanics''. This would be more

in accordance with his eloquence then his modest contribution

about silver oxide versus copper kind (grin).

sampsa55
73 posts
 
@nandric Sorry! I meant @chakster. He acquired an FR64fx to use with his FR7 & SPU.

And regarding the mechanics, since you are adjusting both the distance and the mass so that they balance exactly the same thing on the other side, it's not obvious to me why anything important would really be different. If you're moving the same mass to be closer, then you are clearly having an effect, but then you would also need to adjust the mass on the cartridge side to remain in balance. But I'd be happy to be educated on this.


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