Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

@Dover re: your La Platine comments.

From the moment you stuck a ball bearing between the magnets of La Platine, our audiophile experiences became non-comparable. We went down two different paths.

I regard JC Verdier (RIP), like Bruce Thigpen, a genius. After all still to today their products are offered for sale. They have passed the test of time. I spent considerable time by phone and emails speaking to both makers about optimum setup. No one knows more about these products than their makers.

La Platine experience is like going on a date with a mature French lady. If you want to hit a home run (American baseball), imo, you need to follow her lead and let her show you the way. It appears from your comments you only got to first base with her. Pity.

As with all things Audio - proper setup is everything.

Dear Chris,
It is presumptuous of you to assume I ran the Platine Verdierwith the ball inserted. I trailed both.
Really the essence of what I was saying is that the motor drive system is substandard. Furthermore the bearing tolerances are woeful and I would recommend the Callas kit if keeping it.
Fwiw I sold it to an SME20 owner who found it was an improvement over that TT, so it is not bad, but it is not reference quality.     

Dover - taken from a quick search "Dover Platine" on Audiogon.

Dover - 10-14-2012 8:18pm

The verdier platine comes with an option to use a ball and thrust plate. Essentially this means the platter is grounded, and provides an energy path to ground for unwanted energy or resonance. In this mode the magnetic repulsion is still employed, but it means the tt has a high mass platter, but the grounded bearing only sees a fraction of that weight. This is a very elegant solution and is used in the Continuum. I prefer this mode, the grounding tightens and focus’ the sound, increases resolution and articulation if applied properly.

Now to me, I question why someone would want to introduce a path for noise, resonances. The design of La Platine’s Granito plinth absorbs unwanted resonances.

It seems clear to me that in general terms, for those audiophiles that pursue higher end turntables, They do seem to fall into two camps.

They either want their turntable to

1) have a direct path for resonances (the quickest possible) to mother earth or

2) they want to isolate the TT as much as possible from her. La Platine has been designed by its maker for this camp. .

***********************************

Regardless. good that she went to someone that can appreciate her. IMO - She leaves too much open to the imagination and tweaking. To the pure audiophile who is never happy and constantly seeking change - she is a bad match I think. She is better imo with the person that is a music lover.

fwiw
My Vintage Granito La Platine and ET 2.5, are the only combination I have owned, that has ever even given me thoughts of hot rodding the Studer with 15 IPS tapes. If that isn’t reference quality, then we have different illusions Dover of what reference quality means.

Cheers

Regarding levelness of tangential vs. radial arms:
The side-force on the stylus in a (non-servo) linear tracking arm is proportional to the off-levelness and the lateral DC mass, ie. lateral weight: From 75g up.
With a radial arm this lateral mass/weight force is almost cancelled in case of non-balanced arms with tracking force / "tracking mass" remaining, 1.5 to 3g. With dynamically balanced arms it's totally cancelled, so it is (almost) not critical with radial arms.
The sideways pull on the cantilever created by lateral bearing off-levelness and/or off-level platter and/or off-level record is visible at the moment the stylus hit's the record, but is not easy to see.
To have the arm helping leveling, the arm wiring is critical and needs to be thin and very elastic, ideally left/right separated with optimal wire looms. The radial arms have the levering advantage...
Optimising & eliminating sideways forces unleash the bass and dynamics of the ET2 linear trackers. It is *very* critical.
I doubt that in the 80's all too many ET2s were set up correctly, thus leading to the mythos that straight tracker have a "problem in the bass". 

All true, pegasus. Thanks for sharing.

Dave