Nottingham Space Deck Owners....Again Please

I also found this thread by doing a search online:

DrJ11-18-2005, 08:00 AM
I thought this might be a nice "public service" announcement for Nottingham Spacedeck owners who also use the Space Arm. If you have these, you'll know that the documentation provided is truly dreadful...a one page, poorly photocopied line drawing (and many of the key structures are not even labeled!) with scant and rather cryptic text etc. One guy I know almost cut off the antiskating device (wasn't me - all I did was take about 2 weeks to figure out how to adjust antiskating) when he first got the rig, becuase that's one of the unlabeled structures and it looked to him like a shipping protection restraint! :D

So a real nightmare when you're trying to figure out how to get things set up properly, I've struggled to piece things together for the better part of 2 months (and recently finally got it working nicely).

One of the BIGGEST issues you're first confronted with - and one around which the documentation is completely mum - is how to adjust azimuth. My dealer's original answer was "it's not possible" but since there WAS an azimuth problem and it was definitely affectings sound, and I wasn't ready to throw in the towel and buy a new tonearm, I didn't settle for that.

We first ended up making a small tweak to bring azimuth inline that involved slightly loosening one of the cart mounting screws; stayed secure, no shift in overhang etc so seemed OK but still made me nervous about shifting/instability.

There had to be a better way...and I've discovered one on my own...the black plastic piece that the brass tracking weight is mounted to can be twisted left or right on the shaft at the base of the tonearm to which it is in turn connected, thereby allowing you to correct azimuth! You do have to do this very carefully, of course - it's a little "stiff" so when you gradually increase torque, at first nothing happens and then it "gives" - but rest assured when it does, it won't just keep going and result in damage, or at least it didn't on mine. Then you can adjust how much twist and get the cart azimuth perfect. Probably a smart idea would be to take the arm off before doing this to avoid putting torque on the bearing, but the drawback there would be you couldn't immediately check to see if you'd corrected the azimuth and would have to keep mounting and unmounting the arm. I did this adjustment carefully with the arm attached and it seems to have worked out fine.

Anyway, if by posting this message I can save just one person the literally hours of gnashing teeth and cursing over this I've just endured, then it will have been worth it! :D

DISCLAIMER: I have no idea if this is a "recommended" method of the manufacturer, but so far it's working swimmingly, and doesn't seem to have created any new problems. Another little aggrivation I have with Nottingham is that they don't have any published e-mail contact...I realize I could call their number in the UK and check this out with them, but I'm not doing it on principle - I refuse to pay for a call given that it's ridiculous in 2005 that any company would not have an e-mail "help" contact.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jdodmead, thank you very much for your considerate reply and especially for the write-up. I'm sure we're not the only ones who ran into this and for sure, won't be the last.

I did mine the same way, but I'm thinking the headshell actually turned on the arm itself.....might be wrong about that, but I definitely felt the bit of "give" you're referring to and was then able to position the headshell, using a level, to precisely the position it should be in....flat level when viewed atop a record, which allows for adjustment of the azimuth to be spot-on as well.

Using the Polaris protractor, kindly sent to me by someone on another forum, I was able to align the cantilever precisely with the "B" line provided on the protractor with the stylus tip in the small circle (which I poked a hole through with a pin to allow the tip to sink into it). I made sure the line with the arrow was pointing dead-center to the pivot-center before doing any of the adjustment to the cartridge position.

I made the first setting using the "A" hole on the protractor, and when checking it against the alignment using the "C" hole, it was still perfectly on. Nice to know it is now as it should be.

I'm thinking Nottingham likely contracts with a dealer over here, the guy in CA, and wants all inquiries to go to him so it may generate business. That's fair, I guess, but for folks like myself, in Farmington, NM, 10 hours drive from the nearest place I MIGHT be able to get service (Phoenix), it makes it kind of tough. Trouble is, I haven't had much help over the phone and have just stopped calling them as they're always very busy.

Thanks for the help!

NAS dont appear to care about its customers. Thats why I'm upgrading to a different and "better" TT soon.

On all of the Nott tonearms that I have ever used, the headshell is simply press fitted into the carbon fiber armtube and will rotate. It is not easy to get it right, and it's hard to avoid using too much leverage and substantially twisting the damned headshell to a severe angle, but it can be done. Just make sure that you don't pull the headshell out of the armtube (unless you really mean to do so) or you will risk ruining your day and breaking one of the hair-fine tonearm wires.

Have fun.

Nottingham now has manuals for all of their turntables on line now with pictures. Plus this is a good website for a lot of turntables.

I hope it's not to late. This is a great Nottingham site. Hope it helps.

www.edsstuffnottingham/nottingham_manual_faq.pdf