Sounds like a modern digitized Rabco with better everything.
A Story about a Defective Signature Platinum
Last week I was listening to music at a healthy volume while sitting at my computer. I have an auto lifter (Little Fwend) and after the arm lifted I noticed a static noise with occasional popping coming out of the left channel about 40 dB down. At first I thought it was a bad tube but it disappeared when I turned the volume down. It is in front of the Preamp. None of the other sources had the noise. Swapping tonearm cables did not seem to change the sound but then I noticed that the sound was also in the right channel just farther down. Disconnecting the tonearm stopped the noise. I change over to an MC Diamond, no noise. Same with the Atlas, no noise. Swapped back to the MSL, noise is back.
The cartridge is exactly one year old but it rotates with two other cartridges and might have 75 hours on it. I called the dealer who told me to contact MoFi distribution, the US agent for MSL. Turns out the cartridge only has a 90 day warranty and I was told I would have to send it in for a rebuild for $6000! Can't they just fix the problem for maybe $500, No. Can't I just send it in for evaluation? The stylus and cantilever are brand new. No, a rebuild is the only option and you have to do that through the dealer, click! Most very expensive cartridges have a 2 year warranty on them not to mention that most companies would cover such a defect even off warranty as in the absence of physical damage it is obviously a manufacturing defect, a bad solder joint or maybe just two wires rubbing together. This is very disappointing and as far as customer service goes Home Depot is better than MoFi, Sears is better than MoFi! MoFI is right up there with Anthem Blue Cross! The service rep could have offered to look into it. Maybe communicate with MSL and get their opinion. I am sure if MSL knew about it they would gladly fix it and actually be embarrassed. The Japanese are like that. There is no way I can find to get directly in touch with MSL.
$6000 is not an option. I am not going to throw good money after bad. I am also not going to off a defective cartridge on someone else. I am going to take the cartridge apart and reflow the solder joints and make sure the wires are separated. If that doesn't fix it, it goes in the trash.
Mistakes and defects happen, it is what you do about them that counts. MoFi failed dismally in this regard. MSL makes a fine cartridge but I would only get another one if they changed agents and increased their warranty. Obviously, I will avoid buying any other MoFi products myself and warn others about their customer service. I have no further use for the dealer who did nothing to help. I have had superb service from Musical Surroundings, Soundsmith, B+H Photo and the Cable Company. All handled issues with ease. Has anyone else had trouble with MoFi? What companies have provided you with excellent service when the sh-t hit the fan?
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The only relationships to the Rabco are it is an electrically driven tangential tracker. The current design is the first iteration and in some areas the materials are not established, like what we are going to use for the tonearm wand. Functionally we want it to run by remote control. It will go to the beginning of the record and cue it. At the end of the record it will pick itself up and return to the resting position. The drive is unaffected by level. We will use scaled down versions of the same electronics used to control the robots. Two problems remain. It is going to be a heavy arm, the question is how heavy. It might be heavy beyond all practicality which I doubt. It will certainly be too heavy for many turntables. The last question is how much. We have to get a rough idea of materials cost. Some of the arm is very new technology and the method of making some parts has yet to be decided. The arm might have to be priced beyond practicality. How many people are going to by a $400,000 tonearm? I would like to keep it under $50,000, the lower the better. Initially we plan to build 10 units. If they are well received we will look into building larger batches. The tonearm wand is pivoted in both horizontal and vertical planes. The vertical plane uses a needle bearing very similar to the 4 Points. The horizontal bearing is a very fine ball bearing race without a lubricant. It is limited to two degrees in either direction. The drive will be trained to lead the arm. It will remain perfectly tangential plus/minus a few seconds. There is no need to have more horizontal freedom. It will be neutral balance and the vertical bearing will hopefully be at or near record level. We have not decided on how to trim azimuth yet. We are hoping to be able to control VTA by remote control. We may have to knock off a lot of things to keep the price down. Patents are not much assurance that you won't be copied but it will be very hard to reverse engineer the arm. There are certain proprietary issues very difficult to figure out. This is very new tech. My son in law was showing me a CAD picture of his companies new device and my brain immediately flipped to TONEARM! All of my great ideas did not get very far. One is actually marketed today. My partner, the one with the money got tired of paying patent attorneys. 10 year later up pops my design. This one is not going to be a huge money maker but it might lead to other audio related devices and electronics and give my son in law an opportunity to start his own company. |
@terry9 My ongoing investigation of a modern approach to Organic Material that has properties suitable as a Structure and able to be used for Engineering purposes has lead me to Mycelium (Fungi Roots), this advancing Tech', is worthwhile familiarising oneself with, in some cases, it is already an unknown of household product, used as structural parts in furniture. Being somebody who likes Bullet Proof Board, the Mycelium Bricks being produced are also claimed to be Bullet Proof. Time to learn the Damping/Dissipation properties? |
@pindac Thank you for the the suggestion. I had never heard of mycelium used in this way. I found an article which you may find interesting:
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