Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

Bdp24
Why his LFT-8b loudspeaker isn’t more widely known and owned is a mystery to me.

Hi Eric
Well imo..they sure don’t have any WAF. He should make a white wood version maybe, sort of like the jacket the assistant in that article is wearing. :^)

I think without the grills they are the coolest looking speakers I have ever owned. Others would say ....huh ? those are speakers ? Sound comes from them ? Regretted selling mine.
As far as I know from a few years back the LFT8 speakers have always been in demand with a backlog when ordering?

Hello,

Been reading for about a year but this is my first post.  It is a real testament to the ET arm and Bruce that this thread has lasted over 5 years for a tonearm over 30 years old. The real purpose of my post is to thank you all for the knowledge and expertise you have shared.  While I have owned my ET II arm for nearly 30 years, I have only recently started tweaking it.  My tweaks are a direct result of the knowledge  shared by all of you. 

I have the original ET II arm with few upgrades except the trough which I abandoned years ago.  I found The silicon migrated out of the trough and created a real mess.  I was still using the original pump that came with the arm but had added a home made surge tank.

After reading posts here I bought a Wisa pump from eBay.  Got stung.  The pump was extremely noisy and had obviously been used with a salt water fish tank.  I took it apart and got it quieted down but it only lasted about two weeks and broke down.  I replaced it with a Medo pump and in the process discovered my surge tank was leaking at the connectors.  Built a new PVC surge tank with brass connectors and bought a pressure gauge which showed I was running @ 8 1/2 PSI.  The improvement in sound quality was jaw dropping.  And remember, this an original arm without the high pressure manifold.

 However, the Medo pump was a little noisy and since it is rated for only 60 minutes, it ran quite hot.  So.......I built a soundproof (well almost soundproof) box, installed a fan on one end and vent on the other to enclose the pump.  Voila, not audible from more than a few feet away and now runs just barely warm.  

Well, with this success I had to have more and read a bunch more posts here which got me intrigued with the debate over less weight further out the beam or more weight closer in.  I am using a Lyra Delos cartridge which Bruce considers light weight.  I was using 4 weights at about the 3 1/2 position on the beam.  I removed one weight which moved me out to about 4 on the beam. This lowered base response but was muddy and sacrificed high frequency response.   I considered adding weight back and moving them in, but thought, what the heck, let's take more weight off and move further out.  I am now using only two weights and they are at the end of the beam at the 6 position.  Wow!  Base got even deeper, tightened up and the resolution returned in spades.  Add me to the fewer weights, further out crowd. 

I am not sure which of the tweaks had a larger effect, the higher pressure pump or the weight redistribution. I do know they were not the psychoacoustic improvements that disappear in a day or two.  These tweaks were the equal of a major cartridge upgrade.

Thank you all for sharing your knowledge and experience.

vpi, if you do decide to clean your manifold as Chris correctly inquires about, I would be careful to do it right and go through the more labor intensive (but worth it!) process of removing and cleanig the capillaries as discussed here previously and NOT the sometimes recommended (in other forums on line) method of simply sending an alcohol solution through the "system".  I did this years ago and it made matters much worse.  The improvement as a result of cleaning the capillaries was tremendous.  Regards.

Chris, how are the bears doing with the unseasonably warm weather? 

Not real up to speed on this blog.  Can't figure out where your "runner" is to get to the manifold picture to which you refer.  

In my years with this terrific arm I never experienced any symptoms that made me feel I needed to clean the manifold.  That said, about 6 months ago while in a real obsessive/compulsive state I scrubbed it out with alcohol and a small tooth brush.  I did not detect any dirt or debris on the tooth brush and noticed no difference in performance.  I did not, however, remove the manifold for cleaning.  I just took the tube off and scrubbed the inside of the manifold with the brush and alcohol.   About every couple years I do swab the tube with alcohol and a cotton swab.  The arm has never mistracked except on the few occasions when I was stupid and forgot to turn the pump on; the tube has never dragged in the manifold and I'm not reading what I would consider excessive pressure on the gauge which would indicate a clogged manifold. The Medo pump I'm using says it is rated at 7.11 PSI and I'm reading a little over 8 PSI on the gauge.
Nice hearing from you,
Harry