Fidelity Research cartridges

Derail away gents!
I am familiar with the mag, though I have to say I have never actually seen copies for sale except at that tube thing which used to take place in the rajio kaikan in Ochanomizu in the fall, and maybe at the bookstands at the Intl Forum. I'll have to dig up a copy somehow.

I will try the LC-80 when I get it in a few days but I am not flooded with stages/SUTs/headamps on the best of days and currently my 'good' stage is at a friend's place. I am using a Sony HA-55 and its accompanying stage - not great, but certainly acceptable, and the Sony cart it was built for was quite low output as well, so it should be serviceable for the Micro.

Dear Jcarr: I assume you are talking on the Sumiko tonearm wrap device ( or something similar . ) that I used with very good results too with the long SAEC tonearms.

I understand that that product is out of production but was a useful " tool ".

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Dear Jonathan; I also use a Titan I (and two FR-7f) in my FR64s. Could you pls describe exactly the modification you did to dampen the arm better? Many thanks, Marco

Dear Marco, you may simply use a good - solid - shrink tube and fit it over the armtube. It will dampen the armtube as will blue-tec or similar damping materials.
However - I still am sure, that the FR-64s does not need that special treatment. It will alter the sound - no doubt (already by increase moving mass). But that is always a matter of match with the cartridge in use.
Todays cartridges often tend to be very present in the top-octaves.
Here it might "tame" the sound.

Cheers,
D.

Dear Marco: The one " tool " that I'm refering in my last post ( I know that you are not asking me . ) and that I assume JC was using is a short piece ( around 35cms long and 1cm wide. ) of a clear/transparent stretch material ( it is not a hard material but a flexible one that is very light/weight. ) that serve to wrap in " helicoidal " way/form the tonearm arm wand.

This device help a lot to lower the resonances/distortions on your FR66 along that you use the FR-66 in static balanced way.

Due that the weight of the device is really small ( I think no more tha 5grs. ) it increment maybe the tonearm effective mass by around 2grs that can't alter dramatically the cartridge resonance frequency in favor of better performance due to lowering the toearm/cartridge " distortions ".

Now IMHO if you want to achieve a better quality performance from your 7fs the Micro Seiki MAX ( with J arm wand ) is a lot better than the 66 or even,like JC point out, the Ikeda 407 will make better, I prefer the MS MAX and certainly too the 66 is not the best match for the Titan's .

The commercial job for that arm wrap was made by Sumiko some years ago and today ( for what I understand ) is out of production.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.