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Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners


Where are you? What mods have you done ?

I have been using these ET2's for over 9 years now.
I am still figuring them out and learning from them. They can be modified in so many ways. Bruce Thigpen laid down the GENIUS behind this tonearm over 20 years ago. Some of you have owned them for over 20 years !

Tell us your secrets.

New owners – what questions do you have ?

We may even be able to coax Bruce to post here. :^)

There are so many modifications that can be done.

Dressing of the wire with this arm is critical to get optimum sonics along with proper counterweight setup.

Let me start it off.

Please tell us what you have found to be the best wire for the ET-2 tonearm ? One that is pliable/doesn’t crink or curl. Whats the best way of dressing it so it doesn’t impact the arm. Through the spindle - Over the manifold - Below manifold ? What have you come up with ?
128x128ct0517
vpi's avatar
vpi
223 posts
 
@shfinne 
I'll have to look into that London Decca.  What table do you have it on?
Harry

shfinne
10 posts
 
Harry 
I used it on a TD125 
A bit hard to setup but.. when there, well then something special

yes Slaw since the moment of the needle is direct there is a lot of forces that have to be damped. need high mass tonearm. 

Styrk  
pegasus
116 posts
 
Regarding Decca - indeed something special.The energy it puts into an arm through kind of a flimsy structure is challenging. This is predominantly in the vertical axis, which is much stiffer. The recommandation is probably "heavy arm" but maybe in this case mating is easier with more conventional arms. Kind of "low noise" bearing, like WTT or Schröder, or some of the better unipivots. I think the Hadcock worked well (with a bit added mass).With the ET 2, the long beam is probably quite optimal, but the horizontal resonance goes way loooww. And I had strange audible effects from that, kind of "drop outs" in the signal when the horizontal lf resonance was excited. Never saw this with MC cartridges.The fundamental quality is one of extreme agility and superb natural midrange timbre.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,950 posts
 

@pegasus, the Decca/London's are also incredibly dynamic. Think The Who with Keith Moon live! I liken the D/L sound in comparison to others as like the difference between a direct-to-disk LP and one pressed from a tape recording. They have that head-spinning SNAP!, that percussive attack, and a live music immediacy, that I have heard from no other cartridge..

For anyone considering a new London, get it with the optional Decapod, which replaces the standard, flimsy, plastic mount. Well worth the extra money.

pegasus
116 posts
 
@bdp24, the first "HighEnd" (of the 70’s) I heard was my oldest brothers Garrard Zero tt with a Decca London (Grey?) with a top Pioneer integrated amp feeding a pair of recently refurbished Infinity 1001A. I made many cassette tapes from this setup and from my brothers LP collection with music from Portugal and it’s recently "lost" colonies.
All these kept a cracking, mesmerising immediacy over all these dozends of years, besides sometimes a certain upper range "chatter".
The dynamics of the Decca London is what is always written about. But what kind of surprised me, when I reinstalled one, (refurbished by Reto Andreoli of Blue Electric) whas that this quality was even more one of microdynamics, a kind of grainless agility - besides the impact.
Superb dynamics can often be coupled to a certain relentless quality, something that goes at the expense of a heart-touching quality. Not in the case of the Decca London.In which tonearm do or did you listen to a Decca London?
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