FR64S tonearm overhaul

To get some idea about the complexity of the job look at: www.thomas-schick.com-FR 64
BTW there are those who prefer silver wire but also those who prefer copper wire. If you prefer silver wire then sell your FR-64 and buy one with silver wire inside. I own both and have no preference for one or the other. Anyway don't mess with an good FR-64 specimen.

I love my copper wired RMG 309 with the SPUs so maybe I should just stay with copper on the FR64. I also had seen the Thomas Schick site and think I can handle the job. If there is no significant difference between the sonics of the silver vs copper version I agree that keeping it as a copper version makes more sense. Is Cardas copper wire the best or are there better alternatives?

I agree with Nandric - dont touch the FR64. The FR's have excellent bearings, better than most arms today and I would not risk disturbing them. The Cardas wire in my view is not worth the investment. Firstly it is a springy wire and tends to exert additional forces on the arm movement. Secondly on my ET2 it sounded no better than a high quality silk litz ofc wire. The van den hul silver wire sounds brittle and is prone to picking up rf. The best tonearm wires in my view are the hair thin rectangular Magnan wire as used in the SME iV.5.
Personally I would not touch an FR64 unless it is broken - and then it must have had some abuse. I own 2 of them and they are original and in excellent condition. I think you will get very little gain on rewiring unless you are rewiring to eliminate all the additional internal connections, i.e. 1 continuous run from cartridge to phono input.

Are you sure its copper and not silver? I have 3 FR-64s arms with silver wires inside and wouldn't mind exchanging one with yours if its definitely copper and in mint condition.

The silver kind are marked as such on the box and on
the armwand near the headshell (with a sticker). Some
'purist' removed this sticker because to them the arm
looks better without. But those can probably be only sold
as copper kind (grin).
Dkarmeli, the silver kind are more expensive.