Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners



Where are you? What mods have you done ?

I have been using these ET2's for over 9 years now.
I am still figuring them out and learning from them. They can be modified in so many ways. Bruce Thigpen laid down the GENIUS behind this tonearm over 20 years ago. Some of you have owned them for over 20 years !

Tell us your secrets.

New owners – what questions do you have ?

We may even be able to coax Bruce to post here. :^)

There are so many modifications that can be done.

Dressing of the wire with this arm is critical to get optimum sonics along with proper counterweight setup.

Let me start it off.

Please tell us what you have found to be the best wire for the ET-2 tonearm ? One that is pliable/doesn’t crink or curl. Whats the best way of dressing it so it doesn’t impact the arm. Through the spindle - Over the manifold - Below manifold ? What have you come up with ?
128x128ct0517

@ct0517 

And one of the best arms ever made regardless of price and most unfairly maligned.

It beggars belief that on audiogon there is so much misinformation on the ET2, when discussing tonearms in general, when the Eminent Technology website contains more testing and test data to support the design and substantiate their claims on performance than any other tonearm on the market. 

It's sad that there is much to learn on the ET website even if your preference is a conventional pivoted arm that folk just cant be bothered to take advantage of Bruces formidable knowledge.

 

 

Hi my former compatriot. I was glad to hear that you got an new home.

My hope was also that this home would have an cellar. Not necessary for

an tonearm but for your collections. Those are totally different depending

from personal (subjectiv??) preferences . Say our lew has huge space

needed for his TT's and you in addition for all your speakers. 

My only ''problem'' with this tonearm thread is this: ''are you listening to

the music?'' ''Af course not: I am busy with modifiaction nr.. 123 ...''

As you know I try to make ''Serbian jokes''. Alas humor seems to be culturaly 

determined . 

But there are other more curious problems . Zoologist,  for example, start their

research from the ''wrong side''. Aka from our capabities and try to convince

us that, say, ape can nearly think, count and even speak like humans. So no

wonder nobody in our forum not even Raul, Dover or even our scientist Lew

ever mentioned their  dogs  who have  better HEARING THAN THEY THEMSELF. 

Hi my former compatriot (again) . You should explain what Slivoitz means.

It is plum brandy made form blue plums the best ever drink inveted by

human kind. It helps certainly if one has sleeping problems. One can think

much better after good sleep I assume. Whay not Newtons instead of

Wittgenstein . I don't belive Bewton formulated 10000 laws. This nr.

I needed to refer to the nr. of contributions in this thread. But thanks

to my Slivovitz I got other inspiration . The question conneted with

''number theory''. Aka the Hume princple about ''corespodence'' between

them. Say 5 TT and how many arms if each TT correspond with, say, ONE.

As far as I know even ''our dover'' owns more than one. How can he enjoy

the lesser next to the ''best ever''? Lew I assume owns 5 in corepsondence with 

his 5 TT' s such that he get ''one to one corepsondennce '' between them.

If seen as SETS. I dont bleieve our Lew will be'confronted  with ''set theoretic

paradoxes''. I myself own 3 but FR-64 s ''twice'' (cooper and silver kinds).

I am very fond about this ''beauty'' primary because my lazinnes. I hate

''adjustings procedures''. They look to me like religious gatherings . 

There are no such easy to adjust tonearms like FR-64 S. I can do this

without thinking. I also have no reason to fear comaprison with my Reed 3P

nor with my ''better Breuer'' ,, aka my Sumiko 800 ''the arm'' with all 6 contra weights.

As far as I know by each harem the owner have had his preferences. 

 

Hi Nandric, one of my fondest memories is a FR 7 /FR 64 combo, the sound and solidity of which I see like carved out of rock. I also remember how low the horizontal resonant frequency was... fumbling around with tuning aspects of a tonearm is not to everyones taste. Neither is studying physical formulas - and even more difficult is to accept that some things work although they shouldn’t.
I exchanged posts and mails with Richard Krebs earlier on and I didn’t find his observations absurd in any way, rather I see them as a worthwile contribution to the knowledge base here, based on systematic experiments.
They (partly) fly in the face of mainstream analogue wisdom. Which BTW has been challenged more recently by the Moerch DP-8 which instead of staying proudly slim on horizontal mass, states big is beautiful (on the horizontal level...).
Rigidity with low resonance structure and high mass is helpful in more than one aspect, sometimes. The ET2 / ET2.5 is a triumph in making an air bearing linear tracker "compatible" with sprung subchassis tts. This triumph was made possible by rel. rigid low mass parts and by increasing the complexity of the horizontal mass combo by decoupling the counterweight. This is in many situations desirable (because tunable), is prerequisite for sprung tts, but it is not necessary for low compliance cartridges - in fact (what Richard is saying) eliminating the additional decoupling can in some cases improve the sound.
"His" arm looks like many highly regarded (also) superbly (but differently) engineered air bearing arms, but is based on the ET bearing. Although not for anyone, I like the inquiring spirit and the idea - even if it appears like heresy to moe. :-)
Let’s not forget, that the resonance frequency is changed less than 30% by adding 30g to a high hor. mass tonearm like the ET 2.5. Which, with most records. causes no problem. Increasing hor. mass with a linear tracker just increases the necessity of really good hor. balance adjustment and levelness of the platter.
Even if the adjustment procedure might look like a religious ritual... ;-) it’s very much worth it!
 

Dear pegasus, when I stated to be ''on my own'' with MC''s in the context of

MM thread I ''forget'' to mention advice of my beloved friend dertonarn.

He used himself ONLY those FR-7 and give me advice to try. I was skeptical

because of ''esthetical reasons'' ; the headshell looked ugly to me. But I

suggested to have ''discovered the FR-7'' myself. I strarted with FR 7 

without  any post fix notation. Than try ''them all'' and fall in love with FR7 fz.

Still one of my beloved kinds but depending from the KIND of music I switch

between 3 or 4.  Those are the only ADJUSTMENTS which I make.