Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

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

Hi Pegasus

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.

You mentioned this type of wiring setup previously. I can envision it but would like to see a picture of it. Feel free to send a picture to me if you like at

bcpguy (at) bell (dot) net

and I can make the picture available to the others.

Another option is to have a straight shot all 4 wires exiting the armtube, which then go to the phono stage direct. On their way there, leaving the armtube are 4 separate strands which are placed in a happy face loop***.

This eliminates binding. Binding is the ET2’s kryptonite. The 4 wires attach to the nearby platform your phono stage rests on (around the mid travel point for the spindle). From there the wires are joined to the phono stage. A picture of this can be seen on my virtual system page - Just click on the Runner.

***
My daughters Bengal kitty loves my rooms, and I love her company, but her curiousness is fraught with danger. In room two it is the naked Quad Electrostats. In my main room, one evening as I placed a record on and sat in my chair, I could see shadows behind the turntable. Indeed a tail was waving. I looked over the table and there she was behind - eyeing both the spinning Platine thread and happy face 4 naked wire loop wiring - deciding I think which to pounce on first. My heart beat reached running levels in about 2 seconds.


Specifically to lateral forces - the ET2 versus conventional tonearms. As has been discussed here before.

"the lateral forces are .1 gm. compared to .2 gm on a conventional arm. These figures apply if you do not play records that are not severely out of round. If you like to play severely eccentric records, ones with run out greater than 1/8 ", then we suggest you use a low mass pivot arm"

Taken from Bruce’ measurements and published in the ET 2 manual - Page 47 - Antiskating and Frequency Modulation Distortion Section.

Pegasus
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".

I agree and I am pretty sure all first time ET2 owners of the 80’s, were previous pivot arm owners, who were fascinated with the ET2 arm design and function, but quickly became frustrated with incorrect setup from not reading the manual. The biggest technical error imo - leaving all the weights on the I beam, and simply moving them inward closer to the air bearing for more VTF - like is habit with most pivot arms. This does not give you the highest vertical inertia needed for the best bass.

Cheers