Looking for a great arm that is low maintenence

Sirspeedy - I'm a little frustrated right now. I bought a stack of vinyl right before I sold off the Rega and Benz. I had just bought Simon and Garfunkel "Bridge Over Troubled Water" on four single sided 200 gram 45 rpm lps. I also got Rosemary Clooney, and Jacintha on 200 gram 45's and Sonny Rollins, and Dave Brubeck's Time Out" on four single sided 200 gram 45's.

I have several LP I bought in Dallas when I went to visit Albert Porter and Lugnut to which I have not yet listened.

Thanks for causing me to bring to mind all these bitter memories!!!

Nrchy,I'm assuming your frustrated over the wait time to receive your table/arm combo.I have NO sympathy towards you here.As I complained to Larry(CELLO),last winter,my Cosmos update journey took a LONG time.I mean many months to get it to where I wanted it to be!No fun!!That's one reason to have a good CD player.

The GOOD news---It REALLY was worth it,for me.As you will find out in time.Remember that you are dealing with small companies.They are really "specialty" operations,and need our patience to "Do their thing".

Kirk is a fabulous guy,but he IS Sota.He is hands on with everything,in that small,yet high quality operation.So,it takes a bit longer to get things done.The upside is their products are underpriced(especially the Cosmos)and are built to an heirloom standard.My previous Cosmos ran flawlessly for 12 years,not even needing a new belt,until I upgraded to the series III,which is "on another planet" in performance.Your frustrations will be short lived.Of that I'm confident.Now go get some new music!

Ha! I want to listen to the music I already have. I talked to Kirk today, probably for longer than I should. When he's talking to me, he's not working on the next table. This is my second time around with them. I bought a Star a few years ago and was so happy with Donna and Kirk that I couldn't jump ship. I met Donna at CES this year. It was fun to put a face with the name and voice I spent so much time with on the phone. They are great people.

Supposedly the table will be done around the end of the month!

Nrchy,

I'm sure you'll be thrilled with your new rig. I'm familiar with the arm and cartridge of course and they're a great combination. I've never heard anyone who didn't like their SOTA. Assuming your model doesn't have the arm-compatibility issue that SirSpeedy's did all should be well.

Here's my suggestion for mounting the arm and shipping safely, which are two different but equally valid concerns. Have SOTA drill the armboard and test mount the TriPlanar. When all is good, they should dismount the arm and ship it seperately in its original carton. You'll want to have that anyway, both to store all the extra bits the arm comes with and in case you ever need to ship the arm for any reason. The TriPlanar box is custom fitted to hold the arm and its components safely.

SOTA can then pack and ship the table as they always do, without worrying about the arm flopping about in transit.

Since SOTA will have pre-drilled the three mounting holes, re-mounting the TriPlanar on the table will be child's play. It's literally a two minute job that's impossible to mess up. Tip: pick up three nylon washers to use beneath the screw heads, to prevent scratching the arm's mounting plate. Other than that the arm comes with everything you'll need, including tools and a re-badged version of the TurnTableBasics protractor.

One word of caution that you should pass on to SOTA: have them triple check the spindle-to-pivot dimension BEFORE they drill the mounting holes. They should not blindly trust to the accuracy of the drilling jig supplied with the arm. (Trust me on this one.)

Hope you're enjoying the wait, anticipation's half the fun!
Doug

One more tip: have SOTA ship the arm to you by 1- or 2-day air, not by ground. It doesn't weigh much and it's worth the few extra dollars.

Mine came by UPS ground and they took 7 days to get from the dealer to me during July. They apparently plopped it upside down in a 130 degree truck for most of that time: every square mm of that arm was coated in silicone oil that had leaked from the damping cylinder.

Now a TriPlanar has a LOT of square mm's. It took me four hours with cloths, Q-tips and alchohol to clean up the mess. Not much fun, but it did make me intimately familiar with each and every part of the arm. In the end I'm ALMOST glad it happened. ;-)