Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

Paul, the pivot to spindle distance is 223 mm. I used the template from EnjoyTheMusic.com to set the null points. That is why the arm board looks the way it does. I drilled out the hole and adjusted the position of the arm board. Eventually after a trial period I will produce a better looking armboard or will go the route of building a layered plinth. So far I am not hearing any rumble at normal listening levels even with my ear right up to the speaker.

Mario, the turntable is actually mounted on large closed box. My pictures give the wrong impression. So I cannot disengage the idler wheel from the bottom. The motor/idler wheel does make more noise when standing up close to the turntable than my Lenco. This probably because of the large box which acts like an resonator. I have not damped anything yet. That noise does not seem to show up through the speakers.

Thanks for the interest and Jean, thanks for the inspiration for all things idler.

Harry

Hi Harry

Looking at the arm it seemed about 10mm longer than the average Grace, Acos, etc., length of 222mm so I guessed it was going to be about 232mm (plus or minus a couple of millimetres). Have you measured the spindle to pivot distance since you adjusted the arm board? It looks like you have about a 10mm gap there.

Paul

Hi Paul,

I checked my measurements again and got the same 223 mm pivot to spindle distance. The arm has a length of approximately 250 mm from the pivot to the front centre of the headshell. The tip of the stylus is about 8 mm back from the front of the headshell which gives me about 18 mm overhang. I had no instructions with the arm so I just used the template to try to get a good fit. I assume that the same overhang can be obtained by changing both the stylus position and the pivot to spindle distance. So far the set up sounds pretty good.

Harry

Hi Harry, thanks for re-measuring. I'm looking forward to getting mine going once I've done a bit of horizontal bearing refurbishment.

Paul

Hi Mario, you don't know the half of it: I also have a Rek-o-Kut Rondine Jr., and it too has a metal motor spindle and smaller wheel!! The Idler Gods certainly smile upon me, beginning in that fleamarket in Helsinki :-). Other than "Rondine" written in cursive Art Deco script, I have seen nothing else written on these, I'll look next time I go to the workshop, which is out in the country.

Congratulations Stefanl, nice catch/price, now you become a SERIOUS Lencoer!!

Over here I had not had time to try my Rega RB-300 seriously ever since I built my own Giant Lenco (Mr. Red), and so I set it up this past weekend. My God the MUSICALITY!! I was astounded!! This against a context of a parade of high-end tonearms running through my system, all of which have been stellar in various ways. But this shows me those vintage tonearms I was playing with before really did have some sort of edge in the musicality sweepstakes over modern high-end tonearms, as the Rega, though always stellar, did not match the others for overall musicality. But the first thing which struck me when I mounted it (rewired with my fave Cardas/Music Boy recipe), with the Ortofon Jubilee, on Mr. Red, was the BIG increase in musicality - smoothness, liquidity, wholeness/gestalt, PRaT, flow - ahhhhh, I'm back home again.

Then I mounted the Denon DL-103"E" to the Rega and the music jumped up again in intensity, and for the first time via the Klipsch, the Kundalini Effect!! A miracle hallelujah!! I also learned something about synergies, as while with my other speakers the Denon definitely sounded better via my active step-up, via the Klipsch the Kundalini Effect (ultra-intense PRaT) only manifested itself when I switched the Denon to the Fidelity Research transformer I have.

Now, the RS Labs certainly extracts more from the Denon in terms of detail, slam, soundstaging, dynamics and utter lack of nasties than the Rega, but the Rega has a Grado-type gestalt, and perhaps PRaT, which eludes almost everything else (excepting the SME V, which is the Denon's natural partner, strangely enough).

Anyway, I'm SO happy to have the Lenco/Rega together again, more experiments ahead!! Have fun all, and remember, the minute you change a single element in your system, all conclusions as to synergies goes out the window, it's a complicated old world. Which is why we all endlessly experiment, is it not? And thanks for the kind words Harry, keep enjoying your idlers!! Back to my Lenco/Rega/Denon, playing Kraftwerk SO liquidly/flowingly, ahhhh :-)