Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

Frogman - yes. Ed Thigpen's response at the time was "he's probably right".
Dgarretson, I use to check the level on my ET2 by balancing it to 0 with an additional counterweight and checking that when nudged the arm would travel freely and the same distance in both directions from centre. This as well as a level on top of the tube. Possibly a string bias weight type of weight pulling on the end of the armtube may be "gentler" than tilting the arm in your instance ??.

Frogman and other SL tonearm devotee's: I would think you are defeating one of the prime advantages of an SL tonearm by deliberately setting the stylus so that it is not on the radius of the LP (a line from the outer edge through the center of the spindle). By not doing that, you have a small but constant amount of tracking angle error at all points across the surface, and like Dave said, you have introduced some skating force for which you cannot compensate (no AS on an SL tonearm). However, as Duke said, if it sounds good, it IS good.

Dgarretson
I wonder if this is about adding a small and constant skating force to help propel the carriage toward the spindle in a more controlled manner. Similarly, when leveling the carriage, optimal set-up may call for a very slight tilt of the manifold toward the spindle to gain assistance from gravity.

Well IMO both of these represent a bad compromise and bad design. As far as the ET2 is concerned I have read posts that relate to a slight tilt a few times here. Here is a more recent one from Tonywinsc

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1342120769&openflup&22&4#22

From that post

I had a buddy who used the ET2 linear arm on his VPI table. It took him a few years to figure it out, but I recall him telling me that he had to level his table a certain way- slightly downwards, I think and it would track perfectly. He also said that he had to keep the air bearing tube perfectly clean. It would sound grainy if the tube had any dust on it.

This ET2 was setup on a tilt to help send it to the spindle. This is a result of not reading setup instructions. They also say men have a problem asking for directions too. So I guess Tony's friend never figured it out.

When I raise my ET2 arm and let its cueing lever eccentric actually rest against the cueing eccentric. At 19 psi I can lightly blow against the cartridge and even with it at rest, and the friction involved with the lever at rest on the cueing eccentric, it will still traverse the entire platter. It does not need gravity. Hence the simplicity, beauty and elegance of the ET2 design to me. Platter leveling is done first with a bubble level the length of the patter itself. The arm itself is then balanced with extra blue tac on the weights and gravity as previously discussed here on the thread. Sometimes the bar can get set high in the first jump.

Ct0517 - I would not run an ET downhill, but I get the overhang argument.

NOW HERE IS ANOTHER POSER to ponder :

With a pivoted arm we have an overhang. The pivot arm/stylus tip moves in an arc, which means that for every 1.8 seconds ( 1 rotation ) the stylus tip has actually moved slightly forward with each rotation.
Put another way if you put the stylus tip in the first groove, and draw a tangent to the spindle centre, then with each rotation the stylus tip will move further ahead from that tangent.

This means that to achieve the correct playback speed, with a pivoted arm, then the TT needs to speed up with each rotation.

This means that the only playback system that is accurate in terms of speed is in fact a linear tracker.

Now...thoughts...

I agree with Chris and Dover, in my experience the ET should not be run downhill. Anything but perfect leveling of the arm causes image instability and balance problems at best, and in a worst case it causes severe distortion at the end of a record. The effects of the increased overhang adjustment have been relatively subtle, but definitely audible (beneficial in my case), and I would love to know in more detail what Brucen T meant when he said : "He's probably right". Some thoughts on leveling:
 
Maybe some would consider it masochism, but I have never been even close to experiencing enough frustration with setup of this arm to want to ditch it and go back to a pivoting. I have always tried to setup according to what my ears tell me sounds best, with the theory and "correct" approach taking somewhat of a back seat. As with most things in audio there is seldom only one parameter that needs to be considered at any one time; remembering that makes setup easier. For instance, balancing the tonearm (however we each do it) affects azimuth; so, it's important to remember that when we listen for the image stability effects of getting the balance stable. I use a small bubble level on the spidle itself, not the manifold housing. I find that this gets me in the ballpark, and then I use a procedure that I know will raise some eyebrows. I raise the cartridge using the cuing wand (not the lever) and very carefully "flip" the arm/cartridge up a tiny bit so that it actually bounces up and down unto the cuing wand. While this happens there is enough time for the entire arm to be suspended mid-air without the friction of the either the LP groove nor the cuing wand itself affecting the perceived movement to one side or the other. The arm will then "show" you wether it is truly level or not, as it will travel either inwardly or outwardly during those moments that it is suspended in air; one then mechanically adjusts accordingly. The procedure should be done with arm over the outer edge of the platter, the middle, and (if possible) the inner portion of the platter. I say "if possible" because as all you ET mavens know, the cuing mechanism is designed in such a way that the cartridge is usually closer to the record surface at the inside of a record vs the outside. It's tricky and potentially dangerous (to your cartridge), but I have yet to have an accident. One can always do it with the stylus guard in place, but that doesn't work for me since I like to setup the arm so that there is little clearance between the LP and the stylus "at rest".

Then there is the issue of the dressing of the tonearm wires and their influence on perceived "balance" of the tonearm. Aside from the superior sonics, that was one of the reasons I chose AudioNote wire for my wire loom. It is extremely thin and adds little drag to the arms movement. As an experiment I performed the above-described balancing procedure with the wire loom removed, and even in spite of meticulous dressing of the extremely fine wires, it was obvious that the wires will necessarily affect the perceived "balance" of the arm, and should be compensated for when mechanically balancing. In the case of my wire loom and how I was dressing it, it was introducing a slight force to the outside of the record.

Many users have complained that the ET "goes out of adjustment" over time. That has not been my experience. After years of experiencing this "problem", I finally realized that what was happening was that since I have the table on a wall mounted shelf, the seasonal shifting of the walls and floor of my house (110 yr old Victorian) was what caused the problem, not the arm itself. I suspect that many of the reported problems are caused by this.

Long live the ET2! :-)