Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

Chris - thanks - no war down here.
My motivation is to help people set their systems up correctly and learn more. We all learn from shared experiences. The debate over the past 7-8 weeks could have been much shorter had it not been inundated with junk science.

Richardkrebs, claims to be an authority, yet all the way through been belligerently dismissive of Bruce's recommended set up procedures and of the design principles that underpin this arm. Many of his arguments put forward were simply nonsense.

Everything I have said has since been verified by Bruce Thigpen's recent communications. The addition of lead mass and removal of the decoupling of the I beam will load the cantilever, increase distortion, and deliver a bloated bass response.

Would you have rather everyone who read this thread ignore Bruce's advice - add lead mass and bolt up their I beams as was suggested ad infinitum?
That, along with much uninformed comment, is an affront to the time and dedication that Bruce has put into this product. It is impossible not to have robust debate when basic scientific principles continue to be denied.

Dover.
To address the points raised.
Scaremongering.
This comment was posted in response to your claim that the weight of my arm was sufficient to cause damage to cartridges. You actively warned others against adding mass because of this belief. During the course of this discussion it emerged that the Kuzma is actually heavier than my arm.
While it is self evident that the forces seen by the cartridge will be higher with the Kuzma, you have posted zero evidence that these forces are sufficient to cause damage. The Kuzma has been around for long enough now for any problems of this nature to have surfaced.
Scaremongering....Absolutely.

My comment about being the only person who could speak with authority on the subject was referenced to the sound of my modified ET in its current form. That is a true statement.

It must have been 5 years since we heard each other's systems.
I have not commented on my impressions of yours because I assume that your system has improved since then and any comments I made would be out of date.
I would expect the same courtesy from you.
For the record. While the room is small, it is larger than you recall.
Re the acoustats, they may still look like 2+2s but that is where the similarity ends. Further someone once said something like. .. many a fine tune played on an old fiddle.

BTs letter is clear and well understood.
My position has always been that there are valid alternatives
Rockport, Walker, Kuzma. Just like Bruce, these arms are designed by people who are obsessive in their quest for ultra quality accurate record reproduction. The sales and reviews of these products would suggest that they have indeed achieved superlative results. With a design approach that you claim is fundamentally flawed.
Their designs are valid and I would say that it is l disingenuous on your part to suggest that the owners of these arms possess equipment that needs to be "looked at" , that they are all listening in comprised rooms and that they all prefer one note, excessive bass, along with the sound of miss tracking cartridges.

Yes the ET2 is a brilliant design. There are other brilliant designs

Richardkrebs - So predictable. Yes there may be other brilliant designs, but the discussion is about the ET2, in case you've forgotten.

Yet again you just dont understand the physics.
You are trying to turn the ET2 into a home brew Kuzma, Rockport, or other design which have started with a different set of design parameters and operating assumptions completely - different masses involved, different bearings required, different air pressures required, forces will be seen by the arms differently and completely different set of resonances involved, all of which are fundamental to the performance of any of these arms.

You are tinkering around trying to convert a low mass tangential arm into a high mass tangential arm but have failed to address most of the queries I raised. You have provided some home grown theories and analogies that bear no resemblance to engineering science. You have provided no measurements of your system to support your assertions.
Bruce Thigpens documented design brief and extensive testing show that your approach is wrong in the context of the ET2 ( this thread is about the ET2 ).

I remind you that if you go back to my very first post after you described your lead footed home modified ET2 that my comments on increased distortion, increased cantilever flex, possible record damage from mis-tracking were all preceded with the words "on eccentric records" and I stand by that statement.

In your self taught engineering school of fabulosity do you understand what an eccentric record is?

Do I need to remind you of the laborious weeks of denial on your part that the cantilever does not see the side loads generated from an eccentric record, accompanied by much junk science subsequently refuted by Bruce Thigpen.

Do I need to remind you of the incorrect advice you gave to Thekong and then retracted when I pointed out your own self conflicting arguments, which you then retracted.

In a nutshell Richard you are telling Porsche drivers they can improve their car by converting it to a Hummer. If you prefer the Hummer, I have no issue with that. If you try to tell me that there are no consequences arising from this conversion then you are wrong - yet again.

Richardkrebs
Further to the above, you conceded that after 25 years of owning and modifying your ET2, you did not understand how the I beam decoupling system worked until recently:

03-19-13: Richardkrebs
It could be that tuning here with springs and weights (and their position) is at least partly to do with sorting this possible frequency interaction rather than just the weight or stiffness employed.
03-20-13: Richardkrebs
The thought that there may be more going on with the decoupled counterweight was triggered by your post where you quoted BT where he said that the ibeam had a natural frequency of 2-5 hz.
This is close to the resonant frequency of the arm itself. This could have performance implications.

That means you added your lead mass and removed the decoupling of the the I beam without any understanding of how they were designed to work by your own admission.
Clearly you have never heard your ET2 set up correctly as per the manual because you never understood how to tune the I beam and counterweights.
This means that your comments on the merits or otherwise of your modifications are irrelevant to this discussion as you have never heard a standard arm set up correctly. It is a great pity you never heard my Sota/ET2/Denon set up correctly all those years ago as I believe you would have a different view today.

Question regarding how the whole 'arm' structure/material and how it 'mates' with grounding, regarding tonearm wire?

Some arms are prewired with a 5 wire loom/ one lead specifically for ground. Why is this not needed/offered with the ET? How does magnesium serve as an electrical conduit?