TT, 12" Tonearm. Who tried and ended up preferring 12" arm?

Chakster, I owe you a slight apology: The OP did ask about the Victor tonearm, so far as I can tell.
As to the rubber grommet on the UA tonearms, I will accept your statement that the CW starts out level with the arm wand, because I never owned an NOS one, but I still maintain that a few degrees of "sag" is not catastrophic, and there are reasons to believe it is even advisable, as the sag (a few degrees but perceptible) puts the center of mass of the CW in the same plane as the surface of the LP. Many modern tonearm designs (like your and my beloved Reed tonearms and like my Triplanar) do this deliberately, as it minimizes the change in VTF that occurs as the cartridge tracks a warped LP. Further, the grommet decouples the CW from the arm wand with the pivot in between, which is beneficial also. The later versions of the Triplanar also deliberately decouple the CW using a flexible joint, albeit a stiffer one than the one on the UA tonearms. We’ve had this discussion at least half a dozen times.


If Victor designers really thought it was imperative to have the CW sit in a straight line with the arm wand, do you think they would have incorporated that flexible grommet, which inevitably permits sag, in the first place? I don’t. So, the photo you showed of the tonearm that is to be purchased by the OP looks perfectly OK to me. The sag is minimal, and I wouldn’t touch it. Elliot, my advice is leave it alone. Enjoy.

Just a final comment on the droop seen on many 7082 and 7045 arms.
The only way I believe you will ever see one of these with zero droop is from a nos example that has lived in its sealed box all of its life.
Many reasons for the droop to exist on used examples.

Reaction of the rubber to chemicals present in the environment and natural degrading of the rubber over time, these arms are 30 to 40 years old.
Once a counter weight is mounted then the laws of nature and gravity will take over and again if have been in use for 30 to 40 years.…..
One possible reason for some arms showing more droop than others could be the weight of the cartridge used, a heavier cart will mean the counterweight was mounted further back to balance the arm and vice versa.

All of these factors explain just why most of these arms show some droop to one degree or another and why the amount of droop may differ.

My 7045 has more droop than my 7082, could be any of the above including maybe it was a nos example not used for many years. Who knows unless you personally owned them from new.

Certainly we should NOT be describing these used examples as "defective" as some have done as they clearly are not so.

Now common sense rules and if you see a droop of 45 degrees or more then yes I would be concerned but a couple degrees from level?

Just my take on the arm situation.

Elliot, the poly table Super 12 with a 12" Jelco arm is a great choice as long as you are using a fairly low compliance cartridge certainly less than 15 um/mN. Something like an Ortofon 2M Black will suffer greatly in that arm. The are a lot of MC cartridges below 15 and Sound Smith makes cartridges with very low compliance just for arms like this. 

Mijo.
Elliot bought a Victor TT-81 cw ua-7082 arm already......

Hence the last few posts have mostly centered around the attributes of the 7045 and 7082 arms.

I have no doubt the Poly Super 12 is a mighty fine table though.

Hi Everyone.

I cancelled the purchase amicably. That deck, and arm was not in great shape.

I’ve got my eye on one in Canada, the counterweight rubber was just restored, everything looks in better shape. See the last 2 photos he added

https://www.canuckaudiomart.com/details/649553719-victor-jvc-tt-81-direct-drive-quartz-lock-turntable-with-long-victor-ua-7082-tonearm/

That 2 arm base is HUGE. 565mm w x 508mm d x 202mm h. (22-1/4w x 20d x 8h).

Once I realized how big, I have to rethink where it and other equipment will go, probably need to spend money to solve all that, .....
........................

Question:

IF I go for a TT81 with single long 7082 arm, does the smaller base have the same layered construction as the big CL-P2 base? The CL-P2, on some, looking closely, you can see the layers on the front edge, the smaller base, no layers are revealed, perhaps covered by veneer. Confusing.

I am so behind on Christmas,