Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

Thanks a lot Chris,
Now I have something else to worry about with this arm. Could you kindly elaborate on the gap between the manifold housing and VTA adjuster? Should the gap be the same at all 4 bolt positions or what? I thought that they simply adjusted the stiffness of the VTA mechanism, and had nothing to do with the arm's geometry. -Simplistic thinking on my part, huh?
Thanks, and g-day
John

The Magic is back!  As mentioned, after playing with VTA everything was sounding very nice last night.  This morning I followed Chris' diagram and reset the space between the VTA block and manifold housing with the .020 in. feeler gauge, reset VTA, leveling and checked tangential tracking.  As soon as the I dropped the needle back in the groove the improvement just jumped out at me.  Transparency was back in spades.  All of the subtle inner detail that makes analog so enticing had returned; like Clapton's finger plucks on "Unplugged", Carol Kidd's breath and the air across Ben Webster's sax reed.  I'm still trying to visualize how the small amount of tinkering I had done to those two top VTA block bolts could have thrown the arm so far out of whack.  But it certainly did.  Thank you, Chris.

And shame on me Frogman for suggesting that raising the armboard on the washers could possibly have contributed to my problems.  Not the case at all. This fix just gave me back VTA adjustment range with no negative side effects I can detect.

Now that I'm done with taking steps backward I can report my observations on the magnesium arm wand.  If I were to reduce my impressions to a single word it would be "control".  It is as if the arm grabs hold of the LP and says "gotcha".  Things firm up, leading edges become more defined, and the space occupied by individual instruments become more defined. This was an improvement well worth the cost.

John, 
My understanding of the bolts in the VTA block is that the top two attach the block to the manifold housing and the bottom two and only the bottom two should be used to adjust stiffness. The top two should be set to where there is a .020 in. gap between the block and the manifold housing and never touched again (see photo and diagram on Chris' virtual system page). You should not try to tweak the top two bolts as I did.  After setting the top gap to .020 in. you can play with the bottom two screws to adjust stiffness if needed.  Listen to me talking like the expert after I screwed this up on my arm and needed Chris to get me straightened out.  :)  I'm sure Chris will correct me if this explanation is not correct.

Happy listening to all,
Harry

Hey Harry,
Your explanation is very helpful. I'm not sure I have an issue with this as I've never messed with the top two bolts out of fear. The manual just says to adjust the bottom two. However, as I see that pic from Chris, the gap gauge he is using says .02 mm, and not inches. Am I reading it wrong with my bad eyes, or did you make a mistake on that info? That's a considerable difference! -smiles.
John 

Hey John.  
Actually, there are two numbers on Chris' feeler gauge, .020 followed by .508 mm which is the metric equivalent of .020 in.  It is very hard to read from the picture but it is the same as the feeler gauge I have.  I don't know if you bought your ET II new but if you are sure nobody has played with the top two bolts on the VTA block, you probably still have the factory setting and are good to go.
Harry

Thanks Harry,
I still think you should get an aluminum base. It's much more rigid and Bruce will cut you a good deal. After I got mine, it took me six mos to change it out, because you almost have to start from scratch, setting the arm back up. I didn't want to do the work at the time.
Cheers,
John