Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

Hi Ct,

During the testing phase, my ET2.5 will be set up with a ClearAudio Sigma. When the final comparison comes, I will be using the Ortofon A90 between the Rockport and the ET.

I am using 15psi for the moment with a compressor together with its integral surge tank, and 2 regulators before the air enters the arm. I can easily increase the pressure up to 34psi, which is what I am using for the Rockport, for testing.

About the counterweight, the aluminum square is tapped and the threaded rod just screwed into it. I “reinforced” it a bit with superglue !

Hi Richard, Dover,

I don't have the knowledge to even start participating in the discussion on the physics of moving mass, however I have some general observation.

It seems to me all the other arms that we have discussed recently (Airline, Rockport, Terminator, Walker) have much higher horizontal mass than the ET with the decoupled counterweight.

Take the Airline as an example, if its horizontal mass is 100g, then it is even higher than the 85g of Richard’s modified ET. While I don't have the Airline myself, 2 of my friends have it for a couple of years already and have no problem with cartridge damage. I have also never seen any actual negative report regarding this matter on the internet. The same applies to the other 3 arms.

Looking at the massive construction of the Airline, I couldn’t help but wonder whether Kuzma could reduce the size and weight somewhat without sacrificing rigidity. They didn’t do so appears to me that they have no concern on this high horizontal mass being detrimental to the performance, or worst yet, causing cartridge damage.

Could all these arm designers be wrong when their products are getting very positive comments from actual users, not just magazine reviews?

Of course, all these other arms, with the exception of the Terminator, are very expensive, so they most likely are being matched with highend MCs with medium to low compliance. Maybe the high horizontal mass is less of a problem in these conditions?

Thekong -

I would ask you to consider the looking at this the other way round. Just because everyone says something sounds the best, is it. Most people thought the world was flat at one time.

My experience with high end audio is that most audiophiles dont hear much and have no sense of timing. Products that produce "impressive" bottom end or top end sell well, and even get reviewed well. Of course it's like car reviews, the next one comes out and all the flaws of the last model get written up.

If we look at the wealthier clientele that Kuzma is targetting, most of them will have large multidriver speakers, eg Wilsons etc. Large full range speakers are incredibly difficult to get coherent in a domestic environment. Alternately we get the wealthy single ended group - these are just tone controls, pleasant, but usually at the expense of speed timing and coherence.

My experience of the higher mass is that it might have a "bigger" bottom end but at what cost in terms of speed and coherence.

Most folk who own these expensive arms are also likely to be changing cartridges regularly - are they really tested. I'm sure some cartridges may be fine, but it's not a given, and the additional forces on the cantilever and stress on the suspension are present, to argue otherwise defies physics.

My ran my ET in the manner it was designed ( decoupled counterweight, no added mass ) simply because it sounded better that way.

Richardkrebs

OK now I understand where you are going wrong in your thinking.

Shown here is a link to the Math on driven harmonic oscillators, a mathematical representation of an arm/ cartridge assembly.

The arm/cartridge/record interface has 2 fulcrum points -
The stylus point around which the cantilever pivots.
The cantilever suspension point, about which the cantilever also pivots, but which is partially constrained by the rubber suspension damping.

The forces involved are double ended - you have the groove applying a force to one end of the cantilever via the stylus. The other end of the cantilever has an restorative forces being applied from the arm motion.
The 2 forces are not in sync because there is a suspension joint between the cantilever and the arm.
Think of 2 people holding a pipe and each one trying to move it sideways out of sync with the other. That's what the cantilever experiences.

The model you are working with is irrelevant. It is too simplistic. If you had studied mechanical engineering you would understand this better.

if we take say 5 hz as the resonant frequency, we see that it will not be until we reach say 30hz before we have complete conversion into an output voltage. I dont think that this is desirable.

Making the arm lighter still will extend this frequency upwards.

This is the classic mistake made by an untrained ear. Let's add mass, lower the resonant frequency and we get more bottom end.
Dont worry about the increase in distortion through the upperbass, midrange and top end from the cantilever being forced to deflect further.

Richard, you have not answered the question posed in my earlier post..

Bruce Thigpen has confirmed that Richardkrebs assertion that ‘the cartridge is able to move the arms weight, start it and stop it, without cantilever deflection’ is wrong.

The following are quoted from the correspondence with Bruce Thigpen:
the cartridge will "see" .55Hz mounted in any tonearm, more so in one with higher horizontal inertia

I don't think Kuzma means the stylus does not deflect at all at .55Hz, that would defy physics

The question I am still waiting for a response is:

Does the cantilever deflect below resonance ?

Just give me a straight answer - Yes or No

Hi Thekong

During the testing phase, my ET2.5 will be set up with a ClearAudio Sigma.
When the final comparison comes, I will be using the Ortofon A90 between the Rockport and the ET.

Look forward to your observations.
Based on their specs for compliance and weight with similar spec carts I own, I have had really good experiences with the double leaf spring I beam.

It would be very easy to compare your custom counterweight later on to the decoupled counterweight.

If you contact Bruce he can send you a couple empty I beams with 5 loose leaf springs that you can glue in yourself to make a double and triple I beam. The beams cost about 10 or 15 dollars.

Three are shown in this pic.

single, double and triple

The double in the middle does not have the extra weight on it so looks thinner. The one I am holding is a triple and it makes the I Beam very rigid.

Will use it with the heavy, low compliance XV1.

I posted this earlier somewhere from Bruce on his opinion of the different I Beams.

With respect to the i-beams, this is correct: a stiffer (lower compliance) I Beam works better with a lower compliance cartridge.

Hope this helps - brucet

Cheers Chris

Dover
Again you enter into needless personal attacks

Does the cantilever deflect due to the higher lateral forces imposed upon it?
I see no movement with my cart tracking eccentric records and the math predicts none. However in absolute terms no one could say that there is zero deflection. A more appropriate question would be. Is the additional horizontal mass dangerous to the health of the cartridge, which has been your accretion all along. It would seem that this is not so. There appears to be no issue. If there was it would be all over the web that arm XYZ is a mass murderer.

The second important question should be. Does increasing the effective mass of the ET2 make its performance better or worse. For those of us with untrained ears the answer is yes.
We would need to include BT in at least a semi trained ear camp, as he advocates stiffening the counterweight beam on the arm he designed when using low compliance carts. This is counter to what you advocate when you loosen further the leaf spring.

I like your analogy of a pipe being moved independently at each end.
This of course presupposes that the cartridge body is moving relative to the groove. If it is not, which is what we want, the cantilever has one fixed pivot point at the suspension. The stylus end describes an arc as it traces the groove.