[orthobiz]

I'm gonna make believe that the one day I didn't check Audiogon early in the day...there wasn't a tonearm with the Rega 222mm spacing for sale...that was a 1400 dollar Clearaudio carbon fiber Satisfy...new...for only 425 bucks...and that it didn't sell right away.......to someone who isn't me! In other words, I missed buying it!

There. I feel better already. But my VPI HW19 extra tonearm board still has an unfilled Rega hole.........

To be continued....

Paul

[analognut]

Well...there hasn't been much chatter here lately. Your post gave me somethin ta read! Hang in there!

BTW, still using the EZ. Like it just fine. I'm going to put a little of it in my distilled water/iso/Dawn cleaning solution.   

[TheChairGuy]

BoneDoc Paul....the AudioQuest PT-6 arm and the VTAF set-up is really decent

I had my Origin Live Illustrious Mk. II on that same deck (less the SDS, of course ) and it was a smidge better with the right cartridge.

Then again, I may have wanted to convince myself of that as the Illustrious was a $1500 (used) purchase to me (the entire AQ set-up was less than half of that as I remember it)

You wanna' try mine on it (again)?  It's just sitting here for some time and I don't see it being used anytime soon with my harried schedule. 

PM me and let me know and I'll ship the little coffin it comes in.  It is well made - if a little jiggly because of the dual pivot nature of it - but it works just fine.  Truly powerful bass as I remember it with the right cartridge on it (which is usually a moving coil as it weighs a heavy 14.5 grams or so)

You get to hear a $2700 tonearm on it and decide if the AQ is good enough.  For the most part (for me), I thought the AQ was good enough (but it may have been the fact that the AQ has fluid/pivot damping, weighs 12 grams and better suited to my collection of MM/MI's I tend to favor)

Regards, John

[orthobiz]

Well...there hasn't been much chatter here lately. Your post gave me somethin ta read! Hang in there!

BTW, still using the EZ. Like it just fine. I'm going to put a little of it in my distilled water/iso/Dawn cleaning solution.   

You're right about the chatter (down lately, hope Wayner is OK!!) So, I am actually guilty of a BS post just to liven things up.

Paul

[orthobiz]

You wanna' try mine on it (again)? 

Regards, John

Thanks but no thanks right now, John. I'm having fun playing with your old deck. The new bumpers are working fine under the metal base and the SDS has significantly cut down on motor hum/noise. I'm just biding my time and waiting to pounce on an extra arm just for grins, the right one will come along. I have one of Wayner's favorite AT cartridges that I'll mount and then I'll be able to swap arms. It will make me feel like I am in control of my audiophilia nervosa (at least temporarily)!

BTW, how old is the belt on your old deck? Should I get a new one every year or what?

Paul

[Dan Kolton]

Wayner was at RMAF.  Check out the Audio by VanAlstine circle.

[Wayner]

Here I am. I didn't have access to a computer for 6 days so I've been out of the picture for a while. Yes, I was at RMAF and what a blast! I found Jim Salk a nice Rega P3 with the RB300 tonearm at the show with a nice discount, so he will soon be spinning, too.

I saw many big buck tables at the show and tried to listen to as many as I could, tho we didn't have much time as we needed to tend to our own room. There were many table/cartridge combos that cost many times more then my tables and I liked mine better. They played the music, but it just kind of fell out of the speakers and onto the floor. Maybe it was a bad place to spin vinyl, but our Squeezebox sounded good in our room.

Because we did not have a table in our room, I did not bring any CAT2's to the show. We will introduce that when the new AVA website is done. First is to get the new Ultravalve amp in production.

Great to be home!

Wayner 

[TheChairGuy]

Paul,

The belt is ~ 2 years old...but as that deck saw action in between 4 other decks at various times it probably doesn't have that many hours on it.

Also, for about a quarter of the time I used the deck the past couple years I was messing around with thread drive so the belt was sitting idle then, too.  I came to the conclusion that with SDS, the benefits of thread drive over rubber was mostly small, as it were.

They are $20-odd and probably not needed.  I you ever think the belt is stretching, simply boil it in hot water for a minute and it will shrink once again.  You prob can't do that more than once or twice as eventually it's beyond hope, but it saves you $20 each time you can and do.

Regards, John