Nude Turntable Project

Halcro, Raul is correct about many things. A good mm cartridge is actually very good and satisfying sounding and much easier and less fussy than a LOMC to setup. Vintage turntables and tonearms are no worse than today's great design. The Japanese made 12" and on the fly VTA way back some 40 yrs ago and it is not anything new.

Yes, these are also many good designs today as with tonearms, carriages and tables a but it is wrong to slag off the vintage components our beloved magazines did to protect the industry. Now people are starting to wake up. Good luck in your test and let us know.

While I use and love several of the arms mentioned here, and several other vintage arms not mentioned, I think suggesting that they are 'no worse than today's great design' is not facing reality. There are some fantastic designs out there right now. I think the Triplanar is a beautiful design (not physically beautiful, but in craft-engineering accomplishment). I wouldn't mind a Talea either. That said, the sum total spent by Halcro on his three arms is, I expect, a fair bit less than one used Triplanar.

I, for one, have not completely moved over to the camp of MMs. I think lots of different carts get it right, not just MMs. But there are some nice old ones.

Of course there are many great designed tonearms today. I am not disputing that. There are also many great designed vintage tonearms as there are cartridges and tables too. Why are people going back to garrards, technics etc? Micro seikis were almost unheard by "most magazine reading audiophiles" in north america 15 yrs ago compared to now.

Dear Halcro: Looks really gorgeous that whole set up, congratulations!.

I think that even that certainly you already have a good performance set up I think that you even that have " land to explore " not only on the set up fine tunning but with some " little " changes/tests here and there. These are some experiences about with my naked Technics SP-100:

- I try those tiptoes like footers in both positions and I liked a little more in up side down position ( point at the TT bottom cover.

- Than's that I found the AT pneumatic footers I made a comparison against the tiptoes ones and in my place I like the more the AT: footers.

- My arm pod was not so pretty like the ones you own but certainly works. I test here too with some tiny footers for the arm pod. I think could be interesting that you could think about, it makes a difference.

- right now I don't have mounted/on system's place the nake Technics due that I want to make some tests with my Denon's ( DP-80/75 , that are very similar in appeareance to the TT-81. ) and the Technics but with out bottom plate/cover.
This is something that you could try in the future.

A lot of fun and I think worth to try this NUDE project.

regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Bpoletti,
I started with the Empire 4000D/III on the Grace 904, the Empire 1000ZE-X on the Micro 505s and the ZYX Universe on the FR-64s. I then switched to the ATT155LC on the FR-64s and the AT-20ss on the 505s.
I've put back the Universe on the FR-64s and plan to attach the Dynavector XV-1s to the FR-64s later today.

Fear not........I am trying to cover all bases here?