chakster
... the counterweight on the FR-64 you prefered over the Lustre 801 is also not on the same level as record. Actually all classic tonearms have their counterweight not on the same level as record. Do you think they are all bad for this reason?No, of course not. I think it’s usually silly to pick one design element, and then judge an entire product based solely on that. The FR-64 is a good example - it was an extraordinary arm in spite of a few drawbacks, including the counterweight scheme. On the other hand, to praise the GST-801 as "a engineering tonearm lesson for any manufacturer designer" without noting its design deficiencies and manufacturing /QC problems is a bit misguided.
The most complicated counterweight ever made is the one that comes with Technics EPA-100 and EPA-100 mk2 with Variable Dynamic Damping for the cartridges with different compliance. This is amazing feature! And it was not released on new Technics tonearms!Yup! And as far as I know, no one has done it since!