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Fidelity Research FR-64x

 Fidelity Research FR-64x.....(with silver wire ).  Is this arm still considered  viable today ?

offnon57
Post removed 
nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 

Dear chakster, I also own the Reed 3 P. Fantastic arm but with

fast headshell. I owned all Reed versions because the designer/

owner was my friend. I was their first customer and ordered the

second tonearm for my Kuzma. This was only possible with an

armpod on the left back side of the Kuzma. So they made their

first armpod for me together with 12'' tonearm because of the

distance to the spindle. But by critical remarks from some Aussie

I realized that an fast headshell is not the right choice for those

who owns many carts. That is why I prefer my FR-64 with Technics

SL 1000,mk2. I need 5 minutes time to change any cart while

for my fast headshell tonearms I need the ''whole day'' to change

a cart. The puristic opinion about the connection wire without any

soldering points looks to me at present very exaggerated.

lewm
13,310 posts
 
Nandric, That is something I mentioned to Raul and which he chose to ignore during one of his anti-FR64S rants.  If you leave the FR64S in a cool environment, the pivot has a tendency to stiffen.  If you then sit it at a reasonable room temperature and exercise the pivot, the stiffness goes away.  This is probably the action of the lubricant ("grease") that you say you saw.  Thus I also concluded that the bearing is dampened at least to some degree by this greasy packing material.  Anyway, the arm sounds good regardless. I think resonant energy is also efficiently dissipated within the massy base of the FR64S, especially if you use the B60 accessory and a heavy metal arm board (which I do).
chakster's avatar
chakster
6,144 posts
 
@nandric 

I owned all Reed versions because the designer/

owner was my friend.

He was or he is your friend ?
I went to Lithuania to meet with Reed people to buy my tonearm, it was a demo version, headshell is different from later versions, but you're right - it is not designed to swap cartridges quickly, but i'm trying to use it as reference with carefully selected cartridge. I do swap carts on some other tonearms to compare the sound to Reed. The last cartridge that was absolutely fantastic on Reed is the original (old) Garrott P77. I sold my teak wood plinth for SP-10mkII and now my Technics is in the dark corner on Audio-Technica pneumatic suspension insulators AT-616 (the big ones), but without tonearm. 

I'm gonna mount my Reed 3P on Luxman PD-444 turntable soon. 
nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 

Dear chakster, As I mentioned Vidmantas the owner/designer

by Reed also made an armpod for my Kuzma. He produces those

as separates since. So you can ask him to make one for you.

Now regarding our friendship. He appointed his daughter in law

as his ''external representative'' so I got her answers to my emails.

Alas this lady has no idea about analog stuff so I lost interest in our

correspondence .

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