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Correct alignment for Fidelity Research 64fx/SPU?

Hello,

I've recently paired SPU Spirit with FR64fx (& additional counterweight).

FR64fx is mounted at 230mm pivot to spindle distance on my Garrard 301.

I currently experience a light distortion and mistracking. As I tried the SPU before on almost ad hoc mounted 3012 and that sounded technically correct (though not as convincing as with FR64fx in terms of emotional performance), I'm pretty convinced I will need to realign the tonearm.

I would appreciate any info related to an experience of 64/SPU users here, which would differ from a usual 230m PTS alignment. Also, I keep on reading that Stevenson alignment would be preferred, is there any explanation why so?

Basically I need to make a good decision as I have no armboard - whatever decision I make I will need to get a new top board with a new hole for a new alignment.

Many thanks!
anubisgrau
rauliruegas
13,123 posts
 
Dear @lewm  : I like well damped tonearms with fixed bearing pivot and with removable headshell.

Vintage Technics and Lustre are inside those characteristics along AT design. All internally re-wired.

From some time now I'm using my own designed and builded tonearm and my favorite with any mounted cartridge.

From today and even that some have non removable headshell: Triplanar, Audio Note, Davinci, Durand ( fixed pivot design. ), Kuzma 4 point, SME, Thales, Reed, Townshend. I have no experiences with the fixed VPI but I can think is a good design.

Now, my take is that for any audiophile the favorite tonearm is that that gives the best quality performance levels match with the cartridge he own, at the end these couple is whom has the " last word " about.


Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.
rauliruegas
13,123 posts
 
@lewm  : How can I forgot this one?, the MS MAX 282 that's one of the best ever tonearm design.
R.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,085 posts
 

This may be only tangentially related, but where damping is most advantageous, and is of most potential benefit, is at the pickup/cartridge/headshell end of the tonearm. In the late-60’s/early-70’s, turntable design was investigated in depth at the Cransfield Institute of Technology in England (perhaps England’s equivalent of MIT. Am I alone in considering England the motherload of all things LP related? And not because my bloodline is over 50% English/Irish ;-), where the concept of a trough of silicon damping fluid into which is inserted a "paddle" (a hollow aluminum tube), the upper end of which is attached to the arm’s headshell, was proposed. More detailed information about that research is readily available to those interested enough to search for it.

Max Townshend, a brilliant mechanical and electronic engineer, licensed the rights to the idea, and designed a turntable incorporating (amongst other concepts) the front-end damping developed at Cransfield, which works with all pivoted arms: The Townshend Audio Rock Turntable. The Rock has been available in seven different incarnations (currently out-of-production), and is a turntable rarely seen for sale second-hand. I bought mine (a Rock Elite Mk.2) almost thirty years ago, and though modestly priced (and modest in appearance), it is my most prized hi-fi component. I own a gun, but it is my Rock which would need to be pried from my cold, head hands.

lewm
13,447 posts
 
Raul, Thanks for your response.  Triplanar and Reed are two of my favorites, too.  (Naming the only two tonearms on your list that I own and use extensively.)  I have a Technics EPA-250 with two arm wands, one for low compliance types and one for high compliance types.  I have never been able to mount it on any of the turntables I own, owing to the massive base.  I am not crazy about the fact that the arm wand electrical contact to the pivot depends upon those delicate copper prongs. I am sometimes tempted to sell it, but it is too beautiful a piece of industrial art for me to part with it.  Sometimes I just look at it. You, like most others, probably prefer the EPA100.  That would be high on my list.
Bdp, Are you inferring that the Townsend damping trough was your own idea in the first instance?  If so, I am impressed.  Yes, I agree the Townsend turntable is an audio classic.  Its admirers are only less strident than those who worship the Linn, else it would be better recognized for its unique design elements.
rauliruegas
13,123 posts
 
Dear @bdp24  : ""  is at the pickup/cartridge/headshell end of the tonearm...""

I agree because it's there where exist the very first " touch " in between cartridge and tonearms self generated vibrations/resonances/distortions and its feedback.

That's why is so important that pivoted tonearms can comes with removable headshell design for in this way the system owner can choose and test diferent headshells that can help to that damping cartridge needs.

The damping approach at the tonearm headshell does not means the tonearm overall damping work is finished because that tonearm has different points along its design that needs damping in cartridge signal benefits. But yes, at the tonearm headshell the most advantageous and many times not an easy task to have it exactly there.

R.
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