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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
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rauliruegas
13,101 posts
 
Dear fleib:  Could you overdamp a TT or a cartridge?, no you can't. What any audiophile wants is to " overdamp " those analog rig items/links to can honor what's in the LP grooves modulations.
We want that the analog rig be not only transparent but that disappears ( but the grooves modulations picked up by the cartridge/transducer. ) from the reproduced sound. Everything comes in those LP grooves modulations and comes in " pristine " condition.

We are not talking what we like or what we are accustom to but what must be like it or not what you percieve through ears/brain/body.

Of course that I can be wrong and as always I'm willing to retify if necessary.

R.
lewm
13,141 posts
 
Tonearms to hard core audiophiles are like politics for most all of us. Best left off the table,  As several have mentioned, what is really needed are actual data.  One sort of experiment that I would like to see done would be as follows:
Decide upon two or maybe three cartridges, one with high compliance, one with low compliance, one that is "medium".  
Mount each of them in turn into the tonearm that is to be evaluated.  
Inject into the cartridge pure tones that span the audio frequency range, say 20 to 10K Hz at log intervals, e.g., 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1K, etc, and at each single frequency, take a look at a spectrum analysis of the output. Absolutely no subjective judgement allowed.
This would tell us something about tonearm/cartridge interaction.  For example, to obtain data that would bear on the Raul/Halcro battle, compare an FR66S to a tonearm of equivalent effective mass (if there is one) that is perhaps made of wood or is otherwise dampened.  Or, compare results for a high-ish compliance cartridge in an FR66S to those for the same cartridge mounted in some other tonearm that is deemed to be more appropriate by conventional wisdom, because of its much lower effective mass.

In other words, it would not be so impossible to obtain data on this subject.  "Sturm und drang" only take us so far.  I wonder whether HW has ever done such an investigation.
fleib
1,124 posts
 

Raul,

Did something upsetting happen in your life? To be honest, your posts seem irrational.  Sometimes when life throws us a curve we react in strange ways. To avoid a negative situation it would be natural to go to something that gives us pleasure, like audio.  

I'm not being condescending, your bit about pure musical information going through the wires is bizarre. Of course you can overdamp an arm. Look at the output on a scope. 

In the past you've made some great contributions to our hobby.  If something else is bothering you now, it might be better worked out with a friend or family.

Regards,

halcro's avatar
halcro
2,664 posts
 
Lew,
Inject into the cartridge pure tones that span the audio frequency range, say 20 to 10K Hz at log intervals, e.g., 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1K, etc, and at each single frequency, take a look at a spectrum analysis of the output. Absolutely no subjective judgement allowed.
Too sensible and too scientific an idea to take root in this hobby...🤕
Raul prefers to 'imagine' his own physical universe, free of the complications of science.
He says that he's always willing to learn...but that's untrue. 
First he states that the Resonant Frequency of a tonearm/cartridge combination should be 8-10Hz and then attempts to explain 'why'
well, any resonance has fundamental frequency where happen that resonance ( it does not matters where it comes. ) and that means that at the same time that is happenuing are created its harmonics exactly as the harmonics in the music and that's why those " distortions " always affect all the listening frequency spectrum and we have to take in count that those " distortions " happen all over the frequency range not only at 8 hz or 20 hz but at 3 khz too ( for whatever reasons. .
When I point out the absurdity of his explanation
And of course we all know that the harmonics of 8Hz (16Hz,24Hz,32Hz,40Hz,48Hz, 56Hz etc) do absolutely no harm to the tonearm in vibration mode whilst the harmonics of 7Hz (14Hz, 21Hz, 28Hz, 35Hz, 42Hz, 49Hz) render the tonearm a weeping sloppy mess..😱
He conveniently ignores it.
He obviously has no tertiary qualifications in physics, materials' science,
structural engineering, mechanical engineering or acoustical engineering, yet continuously postulates false information as if they were 'facts' without ever presenting scientific evidence for his delusions.
Because he can hear an undamped metal tonearm 'ring' when he taps it....he imagines that this 'ringing' must occur even when he doesn't tap it. A mistake only made by the uneducated.
Not only doesn't he present evidence to support this absurdity....he can't even tell us the 'magnitude' of these imagined 'resonances', nor their frequencies nor where they are supposedly coming from?
His 'evidence' is always the claim of some contributor on a Forum or cartridge designer or reviewer with whom Raul agrees.

In the wake of his delusional view of the physical world and his real inability to listen to others and educate himself.....there is little point in arguing with him.
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