Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners
Frogman, Slaw et al I found this post from bdp24 (Eric) goes back to Dec 20 2015 Its a good post that explains differences between the Londons. https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/london-decca-tzar-dst-and-similar-cartridges/post?postid=1287... |
By the way, fellas, the way to differentiate between a London SuperGold fitted with a VdH stylus and one with an extended line contact stylus is to look on the bottom of the cartridge, on the red plastic of the cheesy mount iirc. Hand written (by John Wright) in what appears to be felt tip pen ink will be either SG1, SG2, or SG3. My VdH Supergold was marked SG2, but my current elc-stylus SuperGold came fitted with the Decapod, with no writing on the bottom of the cartridge (it doesn’t have the red plastic mount, of course). Somewhere in the accompanying literature I saw SG3, though. The Current SG’s are built far better than were earlier samples, mine showing no signs of oxidation on any of it’s parts, commonly seen in all Deccas, and even early Londons. My SG actually looks like a professionally manufactured product! I think it is fairly priced at $1500 (I forget the extra cost for the Decapod, but it’s not much, and well worth it), and requires only 30-40dB of gain. A phono stage with a high overload margin is a good idea, as it puts out a whopping 5mV! Another by the way: the designer of the Trans-Fi Terminator used the London Reference as his cartridge during development of the arm, for what that's worth. |
Gentlemen, Can’t help but once again congratulating the members of this thread. On other A’gon threads if one gets off target he is quickly excoriated and belittled. Not here. The latest example is the discussion of the London cartridges. A few of you share your knowledge and the rest of us learn a lot. Makes me want to run out and find a nice Decca - with a Decapod, of course. Harry |
- Regarding London Maroon / Art Dudley (Listening 156): In the comments about arm matching, Art got the resonance frequencies of the Abis SA1 the wrong way: The horizontal is in his test about an octave lower (centered around 6Hz) vs. vertical (around 12 Hz), not the opposite way round. Assuming the SA 1.2 has only slightly differing vertical and horizontal masses, this leads to a 4x stiffer vertical compliance than horizontal, this is what I wrote, and was to be expected.- I don't agree, that a horizontal resonance at 6Hz poses any problem, but optimally the vertical resonance is considerably higher, which is the case with the SA1. Therefore (and because of the chunk solid construction of the arm) it is expected that the SA1 was (slightly) preferred. But damping would be desirable as also his situation shows. - In one of the better german magazines there was a test of the London Studio which is similar to the Maroon, but using a front and back tie-back thread, instead of only one pulling back. The review sounded somehow surprised by the (even better than expected) sound quality, which Intrigued me. - Is this possibly the best sounding London, at least of the "basic" ones? - Reflecting abouth this review, a suspicion came up: The double tie-back thread is probably for DJ cueing reasons, but... it stabilizes ("grounds" ?) the cantilever better, and must reduce horizontal compliance. Both are very desirable effects - specially in the ET2 arm, because it might lift the horizontal resonance a few Hertz, a few dozen percent. This gives more playground for optimizing the counterweight / spring combos. If buying new - this would be my choice (and using it with the damping trough). - If one can go without the airy-fairy upper highs of the more modern styli, the conical stylus has its own considerable advantages - musical coherence: See DL-103 & Ortofon SPU. (OK, I think the VTF is a bit higher too). |
