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Music Hall MMF 9.3 upgrades

hey folks,

ive owned a music hall mmf 9.3 in walnut for about year now and just like any other audiophile, im constantly falling deeper into the rabbit hole. Ive scoured the internet but can't really find anyone talking of serious upgrades they've done to these tables. Ive added an xtc drop counterweight to the stock project 9cc tonearm which is flying a hana sh cartridge. My thoughts on major upgrades are the following:

Tonearm?: 
I haven't heard of anyone swapping the tonearm on these things. How much of pain would it be? would I be limited to tonearms that mount to the linn standard? has anyone done this?

Motor:
so the 15v DC motor that comes stock with the table runs a bit fast for me. Im actually thinking about downgrading my motor to the 9.1 15v AC motor and getting the music hall cruise control 2,0 speed box to give me more control over the speed. 

please share your thoughts. Im asking for a friend!

thanks!
cbedry66
catcher10's avatar
catcher10
77 posts
 
Get the Cruise Control w/AC motor and that is a large sonic upgrade for minimal money. 
I have a 7.1 that I turned into a 7.3 by adding a 9cc tonearm and the Cruise Control...both of those took me up several notches. 
I think the ProJect arms are very good, well designed and you'd have to spend serious cash to better it.
Look at a higher end cart, I have found the ProJect arms take to better carts really well. I run a Lyra Delos and no need to do anything else, it's pretty amazing.
rooze's avatar
rooze
634 posts
 
Oracle make a good upgrade kit for the 9cc Evo.
I have it on my MMF-11, it’s a small attachment that’s easy to install and dampens vibrations from the armwand.

I paid around $170 with shipping.
cbedry66 OP
4 posts
 
alright, lets talk about this oracle audio damping kit for a second. I as well just recently purchased this kit and installed it to my 9cc arm. This product has minimal but great reviews from whats out there. The first issue I have with this product is that it greatly effects how the tonearm works mechanically. This essentially is adding much  more anti skate to your tone arm and in my application I am already using the lowest anti skating setting on the 9cc tonearm. Therefore it was impossible to dial in the proper anti skate settings. Also going along with that, even if you could properly dial in the proper amount of anti skate with this attachment, the silicone changes viscosity with temperature, therefore this would constantly be changing depending on the temperature in your room. For me living in the northeastern United States in an old home, the temperature of my house varies drastically depending on the time of year. And so, I got this attachment set up temporarily using a combination of the damping attachment  and a smaller  weight to get the correct anti skate and found that this greatly sucked the  life out of the music. 

In the final analysis, Im betting that in any set up, with proper isolation under your turntable, this damping kit will do more harm than good. It will certainly dramatically affect the mechanical operation of the tonearm and will do so very inconsistently depending on temperature. If you dont believe me just A/B a tune with the screw dragging through the silicone trough and without it dragging through the trough. 
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