Fidelity Research FR-64x

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).

@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 
Nandric, surprisingly I have never dismantled a FR64s.
Dampening does not need to be provided by a lossy material such as rubber or grease. For example, if 2 different metals are joined together you can achieve bimetallic dampening. Example - Copper mat on aluminium platter dampens the aluminium. Technically you could argue the FR64 arm tube is damped by both the headshell joint and the joint between the tube and bearing pillar itself.

The arm itself in toto is damped by the termination/armboard material.
Personally with 2 FR64S in my stable I have heard the "upper mid brightness" on occasion but this also depends on cartridge choice and arm termination/turntable as to whether it is an issue. The Naim Aro arm tube is "undamped" but has no upper mid brightness with any of the many cartridges I have used.

No tonearm is without colourations, when one describes the sound of a tonearm one is really describing the sound of the sum of the parts - turntable, tonearm, cartridge, cable and phono stage. This seems to be the point that continues to elude the Mexican.

Despite owning many tonearms that provide dampening, I have achieved maximum transparency by not employing dampening, but through cartridge compatibility and accurate set up. When I owned a high end shop in the 80's my experience was that 90% of turntables were not set up optimally and that in many instances dampening was used as a bandaid for what was ostensibly poor set up or system colourations.

@nandric

Your Lustre 801 has only the (thin) armwand made from steel.

Right, Lustre GST-801 Vibration-proofing of stainless steel arm-pipe. The rest composed of brass parts with huge stabilizer. I enjoyed this arm pretty much with various MM cartridges (Pioneer PC1000 mkII was great along with At-ML180), it’s the heavyest tonearm i have ever owned, low compliance MC carts (FR-7f and SPU Royal G MKII) were both fantastic.

@offnon57 I think this GST-801 is alternative to FR-64S with silver wire. Lustre GST-801 comes with silver wire too. The Lustre GST-801 is the first dynamic balance tone arm with contactless stylus force application system.

This Lustre's unique variable magnetic flux type stylus force application system is a magnetic contactless system of compact and simple construction using a rare earth magnet. Features high Precision radial bearings. VTA on the fly, Magnetic flux type anti-skating mechanism.

I’m waiting for my FR-64FX to try.

Meanwile the Lustre arm migrated to another home in my neighbourhood. It will be mounted on Technics SP-20 for a friend. This is my last picture of the Lustre 801.