ZYX too light for my Shroeder arm. Help

My ZYX R-1000 Airy S balanced fine on the Graham tonearm but I wanted to add a bit weight to emulate the silver base. Solution? Use stainless steel screw and nut. I used 3 nuts with each screw to maximize the weight. The extra weights does make it sound cleaner and tighter.

Please take Doug's comments in light of his experimentation with non-Schroeders.

You will always have a "shim" with a Shroeder (a.k.a. cartridge carrier). Give this reality, you have the opportunity to tune the mass of your arm in two ways: (1) make a thicker one up out of aluminum (2) get the brass one through your dealer.

The brass adds about 5 grams (bumping the mass from about 2.6 to 7.6 g).

Now, with brass you're changing the interface between cartridge and tonearm. When you change materials and this is always a wild card. For this reason, I'd try both a thicker piece of aluminum (try a piece 3 times your current thickness) as well as the brass.

You'll likely prefer one over the other, and remember that this is not a universal judgment but rather a preference you'll have with your ZYX.

Making up your own thicker carrier isn't rocket science. The pivot hole is a 2.5mm x .7mm tapped hole, and the two cartridge holes aren't threaded.

Your tool set consists of a hack saw, a mill file, a drill along with a bit/tap set. Assuming you have most of the above, the tap/drill bit would set you back a whole $5.00.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galiber

Thanks Thom for the info.

I purchased the arm second hand in Australia, and as far as I know there is no distributor in Australia. Buying the Brass carrier seems to be the best option. I dont want to ruin the workmanship of the arm with my awful handiwork. Could you supply me with a carrier?

Also Thom, could you help me with the antiskate on my arm(model 2). When i turn the dail for the antiskate, instead of the thread being twisted, it just moves the VTA up or down.

Thanks

I have the R50 Bloom, are the other models in the zyx line more suitable to the shroeder?

I had a Bloom for a short while and measured a very high resonance frequency (13-14Hz) on a medium weight Rega arm. The compliance of the Bloom seems to be therefore much lower than the other Zyx cartridges; in fact it had a much lower compliance than the Denon DL103R. This may be the result of the very different cantilever than on the higher end ZYX. Adding mass to the arm would be a good idea. Of course Thom's suggestions are excellent as well to play with different thickness of Aluminum.

Zyx also produces a product called "The Silent Metal". The Brochure says:
The silent metal works to prevent the occurrence of the reflected vibration on the headshell surface by its special material, shape and the thickness. Thereby the real time domain that directly concerns to the sound quality of the cartridge, is never damaged at all.

The silent metal goes between the cartridge and the headshell. It comes in two versions-

SM-R: net weight 1.5 grams( for rs-10, rs-20, rs-30 and
r-100)
SM-T: net weight 1.7 grams ( for RS-02 series, R100-02 series, R-100F, R-1000 and R-100 airy.)

This was what I used to add weight to my Zyx bloom when I had the same problem before with my SME arm. I'm not sure if this would be enough weight for your arm but for me it was enough and it did provide some sonic benefits.