Rabco SL-8E Tone Arm

Dave is one of the good guys. He can probably repair one in his sleep, too. ;)

Win

Essential&Mosin, Is David 'the watchmaker' who used ruby
bearings for the Rabco and moded the armwand? In the 80is
or even before? The Rabco was/is very popular in Holland
but the aim by modifications was to make the arm lighter
(aka MM carts). So, among other, the balsa wood was used for the armwand.

I owned a Rabco for some time. I set it up with a carbon fiber arm wand, and developed a servo for the motor that actually worked. It prevented the arm from lifting off prematurely, skipping and also got rid of the servo activation noise.

The servo was rather simple. I built it up on a little circuit board and hid it inside the motor/battery box. As long as the contact resistance was below 1 megohm it worked fine. That made the arm a *lot* easier to live with!

Nandric, I believe the "watchmaker" of whom you speak was Herb Papier, the eventual inventor of the Triplanar tonearm. I think Herb used to tell me of his adventures with the Rabco. The Rabco was invented and built here in the Washington, DC/Maryland area as well, by an engineer named Rabinow. (Hence the name of the tonearm.) Herb was a watchmaker by trade (or more likely a watch-repairer), before he got into the crazy business of hand-made tonearms.

Nandric: Yes, this is the same person. As Mosin said, David's one of the good guys. It's a privilege to know him.