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Tonearm recommendation

Hello all,
Recently procured a Feickert Blackbird w/ the Jelco 12 inch tonearm.
The table is really good, and its a keeper. The Jelco is also very good, but not as good as my Fidelity Research FR66s. So the Jelco will eventually hit Ebay, and the question remains do I keep the FR66s or sell that and buy something modern in the 5-6 K range. My only point of reference is my old JMW-10 on my Aries MK1, so I don't know how the FR66s would compare to a modern arm. So I'd like to rely on the collective knowledge and experience of this group for a recommendation.

Keep the FR66s, or go modern in the 5-6K range, say a Moerch DP8 or maybe an SME.

Any and all thoughts and opinions are of course much appreciated.

Cheers,      Crazy Bill
wrm0325
lewm
12,845 posts
 
My point was not about whatever is the "correct" geometry for a DV505/507, because I don't know what that is, except it's likely to be at least close to Stevenson.  My point was that twisting the cartridge/cantilever in the headshell such that the arc described by the cantilever is not in the same plane as that of the vertical bearing of the tonearm did in fact seem to produce unpleasant distortion (as opposed to "pleasant" distortion).  This is in agreement with Dover's line of thinking.  I heretofore kept this to myself, because this is a single observation of mine.  I was very interested to see that Dover and some others have arrived at the same conclusion.

In my case, I own a UNItractor, from Dertonearm.  He kindly supplied me with a template dedicated to the DV505.  That's what I now use to align my DV505, and it results in "correct" alignment of the arc of the cantilever vis a vis the arc of the vertical bearing.  Separately, I also have demonstrated to my own satisfaction that the DV505 comes close with standard Stevenson, using a Stevenson protractor I downloaded from VE for free.  But I don't now use that; I use the UNI for the DV505.  Dertonearm's design is complex and a bit cumbersome to use, but it is also ingenious and permits very accurate alignment because of the ancillary tools he provides.  However, I cannot quote distances in fractions of a mm; I'm just a slave to the UNI. Life is short.
fleib
1,124 posts
 
Only the inner null is close to Stevenson. The outer null is exactly Loefgren B.
fleib
1,124 posts
 

Lewm,
**I use the UNI for the DV505.  Dertonearm's design is complex and a bit cumbersome to use, but it is also ingenious and permits very accurate alignment because of the ancillary tools he provides.  However, I cannot quote distances in fractions of a mm; I'm just a slave to the UNI. Life is short**

Is this UNI like using 2 protractors?  Seems to me no individual protractor can align for both Stevenson on the inner and Loefgren on the outer.

Regards,

folkfreak's avatar
folkfreak
1,349 posts
 
Dietrich’s UNIProtractor, which I also use, is set up to align to his UNI Din standard which was discussed earlier in this thread. The UNIProtractor is a very accurate system but does rely upon being able to align with the tonearm pivot very accurately, while this can be performed very easily on arms like a Kairos which has a defined pivot point it can be much harder on an SME IV say where the precise pivot point is hard to spot
 A review of the current iteration of this tool is here 

http://www.theaudiobeat.com/blog/smartractor.htm
fleib
1,124 posts
 

Now that I think about it, I asked a dumb question. Of course a single set up protractor can have any 2 nulls drawn or etched on it.  I was thinking from the standpoint of protractor with a single standard alignment, hence the question.

Is that Audio Beat a review or a marketing business? Probably both.   Gregory did a nice sales job with only a deception or two, but the only thing that really interests me is the UNI-P2S, and he only mentioned it. Follow the link and you have to download. It's probably a fancy Dennesen tonearm locator, just as all these alignment grid/pivot pointer protractors are based on the SoundTractor, only they're better.

Thanks for the link Folkfreak. Those Dertonearms look interesting. A little pricey maybe.

Regards, 

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