Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

One aspect of the London/Decca cartridge design that influences arm choice is the differing lateral vs. vertical compliance figures, they being 10 X 10 (-6) cm/dyne Vertical and 15 Lateral. I know the ET arm has differing moving mass figures in the two planes, but whether or not they align (or conflict) with the London compliance figures I don't know. Whatever arm is used with London's, it has to have as stiff and non-resonant an arm tube as possible, and the best bearings one can afford. That benefits all cartridges of course, but London's put a LOT of energy into the arm.

Another thing to know about the cartridge is that it likes to be loaded with unique amounts of resistance and capacitance. The Reference model is at it's best with 15k resistance and about 220 pF capacitance. I was tutored in Decca's in the 80's by Harvey Rosenberg, and he liked the Decca's of that time with a LOT of capacitance, like 0.5 mF!

Oops, one other thing: London's put out not only a lot of mechanical energy, but electrical as well---5mV! You will need a phono stage with a pretty high overload margin, and lower than average gain, about 40dB being a good figure.

Richard
Yes i have two twisted silver wires running left and right of the tonearm. They are mounted to the tube via three very small pieces of double sided adhesive foam strips, to hold the wires and prevent them from touching the metal arm tube. They "exit" the arm connection bending a bit up and then down in a wide radius to the plinth, where they are supported again with an adhesive foam pad. And there is a separate ground wire to one of the arm screws.
With careful wiring dressing the arm is completely free in movement, and very sensitive to the smallest lateral imbalances, as it should be.

Pegasus et al

have u considered using a DIY Faraday cage for the last part of the wire loom - the part that doesn't affect the spindle movement right after the wire loop to where the wires go into your phono.

A sample Faraday cage recipe. For around wires.

1) Small teflon tube.
2) Larger teflon tube around smaller tube.
3) Brass / copper around wires to which a ground cable is attached at the end furthest from the phono.
4) Finish off with attractive audiophile sleeving :^) - optional.

The cage will capture all the crap and send it to the ground wire that you attach to your preamp/phono ground.

This is good option if your rack/gear setup design does not allow for the James Bond maneuvers I discussed in my previous post. :^)

Chris, that is exactly what I did . It helped a great deal with MM's which tended to have grounding issues although not nearly as severe as with the Decca, but with the Decca it is still a problem. MC's have never been a problem. For anyone who is interested, Michael Percy (website) stocks all necessary items including Teflon tubing, copper mesh and sleeving.