Detachable Head shell or Not?
I am in the process to up my game with some phono system tweaking.
I read in these forums of many people here with multiple arms, multiple cartridges and even multiple turntables. I am guilty of this myself but moderately compared to so many phono hardware diehards here.
All the continued comments on Talea vs. Schroeder vs. Kuzma, Da Vinci, Tri-Planar, etc., etc, on these forums. And the flavor of the day cartridge. One easy way to manage the use of many cartridges, easily swapping between them, and getting down to one turntable would be to run with a tonearm that supports removable head shells or arm tubes. And yet this does not seem to be widely done here. Is everybody just too proud of all the pretty phono hardware to admire?
Many highly respected arms of the past, FR 64/66, Ikeda, and now Glanz, Kuzma 4-Point, the new Tru-Glider, all with removable heads. And the Graham and Da Vinci with removable arm tubes. These products have a huge fan base and yet there seems to be an equal number of those against any extra mechanical couplings and cable junction boxes, din connections, etc.
I can appreciate having two cartridges, one to bring out that addictive lush bloomy performance and another that shows off that clarity and detail “to die for”. Being able to easily swap between the two, with hopefully only a quick VTF/VTA change, would be mighty nice. If too painful a process, I can understand the need for two arms here; like the idea of going through many LPs in an evening and not being obsessed with tweaking the arm for each. I hope I never get obsessed to do get to that point. But for different days/nights, to listen to different kinds of music, it could be mighty nice to swap out one cartridge for another in different head shells without the added cluster and cost of oh please, not another tonearm!. Do a minute or two of tweaking, ONCE, for that listening session, and then enjoy. There is always the added risk during the uninstall / install process to damage that prized cartridge.
Is running with a tonearm that has a detachable head shell all that sinful / shameful in the audiophile world ……. or not? I’d like to hear from those who have achieved musical bliss with removable head shell arms and also from those that if asked to try such a product would likely say, “over my dead body”!
John
Indeed you did in your ET2 arm discussion. A posted picture here of the end result would be nice to see. But the thought of someone using this idea to try many different wire configurations with copper, silver, gold, platinum leads, and to successfully shield this to the phono stage. Now that makes me 😊. |
Evidently the Tru-Glider is an underhung tonearm with zero headshell offset. That’s cool! However the website contains BS typical of other manufacturers of underhung tonearms. They don’t seem to understand their own product. To wit: the claim is for “no anti-skate (presumably because no skating force), no azimuth, and no friction (!)”. The subject has been done to death here, but underhung tonearms DO generate a skating force, although I agree there is no use trying to counter-act it because it changes direction over the course of play. Of course, there IS azimuth any time you set up any cartridge, so I don’t get that claim, and nothing with a bearing, even if it is a string, as in this case, has NO friction. Still, I like the rest of the design, if it doesn’t cost a fortune. Oops! $4700 to more than $6000. Too much for my blood.
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Dear @jafox : You are rigthand unfortunatelly we audiophiles have no single tiny control about the whole recording proccess other that the kind of LP we buy. Even we audiophiles have a minimum real/true control at play back overall proccess and that's why we have really selective on each step/change/modification/new item/ we want to do around our room/system.
I think that due of the kind of IC phono cable you are ausing you are rigth that need the DIN pin-5 tonearm output connector.
I posted that due to the quality level of the signal performance levels we have as a target the important issue between continuous cable against non-continuous could be the difference for the better quantity that certainly will be lower quantity difference that when we are changing IC cable through the DIN tonearm connector. Your IC cables seems like something " special ":
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@jafox :Btw, Reed tonearms could be a good alternative to you and I understand that you can have not only DIN connector but a choice in the tonearm internal wire.
R. |
