[bastlnut]

hallo all,

i finally found a Magnapan Unitrac tonearm!
its the best thing since sliced bread....as far as Grado cartridges are concerned.
7g unipivot tonearm with CF armwand and headshell.
it is undamped except for the use of CF, and i prefer my Grados only slightly damped anyways.
tracking at 1,4g and 0,6g anti-skate....because that is the minimum unless i remove the BB bucket for the anti-skate weight.

the sound is really amazing with my 8MZ cartridge.
i would say with this arm the 8MZ surpasses the Sonata!
the sound is more detailed and has much better micro-dynamics than the Lurné nr 2 arm i used before.
bass seems to be more tuneful at lower frequencies now and the notes are better sustained and you can hear all the decay now.
this is with the old style Reference i have so we are getting up there with some of the best MCs.
back with the 8MZ now...
the treble is all there, but it seems more natural now, if i say softer then all will think that it is rolling off, but it is not doing that at all.
voices, the best part of a Grado anyways, are really really there. just there .
seems to have more weight and still with all the air around it like before, simply more substantial.

now, these arms are as rare as hens teeth. i have waited for 3 years to find one that is NOS or very close to it.
finally did and this one stays with me!

regards,
bas

[DaveyW]

Great Bas and worth the wait by the sounds of it.
Any chance of some pics.

I'm presuming that's an original 8MZ with a nude stylus?
The current Grado supplied 8MZ stylii are bonded - strange eh!

Happy spinning,
Dave

[neobop]

Hi Bas, Davey, Good to know - I'll have to try another Grado.




neo

[BaMorin]

Hi Bas, Davey, Good to know - I'll have to try another Grado.




neo

You have a unitrack up and running?

[BaMorin]

hallo all,

i finally found a Magnapan Unitrac tonearm!
its the best thing since sliced bread....as far as Grado cartridges are concerned.
7g unipivot tonearm with CF armwand and headshell.
it is undamped except for the use of CF, and i prefer my Grados only slightly damped anyways.
tracking at 1,4g and 0,6g anti-skate....because that is the minimum unless i remove the BB bucket for the anti-skate weight.

the sound is really amazing with my 8MZ cartridge.
i would say with this arm the 8MZ surpasses the Sonata!
the sound is more detailed and has much better micro-dynamics than the Lurné nr 2 arm i used before.
bass seems to be more tuneful at lower frequencies now and the notes are better sustained and you can hear all the decay now.
this is with the old style Reference i have so we are getting up there with some of the best MCs.
back with the 8MZ now...
the treble is all there, but it seems more natural now, if i say softer then all will think that it is rolling off, but it is not doing that at all.
voices, the best part of a Grado anyways, are really really there. just there .
seems to have more weight and still with all the air around it like before, simply more substantial.

now, these arms are as rare as hens teeth. i have waited for 3 years to find one that is NOS or very close to it.
finally did and this one stays with me!

regards,
bas

The company makes some pretty good speakers as well.

Back to the 8MZ for a moment.  Most of the press written up on the cart was done (as usual) with the wrong arm(s) ( 1988-1990)   Mount one of your upper crust wood bodies on that Maggie Uni and get back with us.

[BaMorin]

Great Bas and worth the wait by the sounds of it.
Any chance of some pics.

I'm presuming that's an original 8MZ with a nude stylus?
The current Grado supplied 8MZ stylii are bonded - strange eh!

Happy spinning,
Dave

Not sure what the bond has to do with it, as that part doesn't ever contact the groove.
The cut on the "new" 8MZ still appears to be hyperbolic under my scope.  Odd that Grado changed it up?
Yeah I guess.  Odd also is the price of the sylus hasn't changed from 1987(?) through 2011.

[neobop]

You have a unitrack up and running?

Done bin had that Ba.
It's the Sonus Formula 4 that still be down.

This baby is one bad boy arm with VTA on the fly. I think the eff mass is actually 8g. I'll check the owners book. What a great deal I got a couple of years ago. The arm cost a few hundred and I got a free Denon 1250 and DL-103d cart. I have to fix the 1250, maybe I can just spray the speed pots. But I was going to throw it on a Kenwood anyway. I might already have an armboard. It mounts at 222 (copied by Rega) but you have to keep an exact angle between mount hole, spindle and rest position. Maybe I'll make a new board. I am planning to use this on a Teres/Sapphire along with a 12" arm. That is, if I ever finish the project.
neo

[bastlnut]

hallo,

yup, i have it up and running on a Lenco L75 that i am beefing up for someone.
it actually mounts in the original arm hole. spindle to pivot is 224mm but the post is actually at about 214mm. the pivot is behind the VTA column and right before the CW.
to find the place to drill the hole you have a 2 piece template that you need to use.
original instruction booklet say 7g eff. mass.

i have had a Sonata on it, and the 8MZ buries it.
the stylus i have is a nude diamond one.
i will try the Statement on it if i can bring myself to take it off my Stax UA90!
now my old Sig. Reference on this arm is a wonder!
i will install this arm on my main 3 arm turntable soon, i think, and finally get that Reference woody rebuilt to mono.
i have 2 headshells so it will be easy to swap the high compliance cartridges i want to use.
i am getting a Goldring IGC cartridge this weekend and will have some fun with that!

this must be the ultimate arm for Grado's in the 9" category.
eff. length is 241 so i guess it is a 9,5" arm.
the Lurné arm is also unipivot and has variable Eff. mass thanks to the sliding VTF weight on the armwand.
it just does not take you straight to the music like the Maggie arm does.
the detail retrieval is amazing! more important, the portrayal of inflection and tone is what is so riveting.

i am not using a longhorn or and damping at all.
doesn't need it.....i was never a fan of all that anyways, and with this arm it is not needed in any way.
i may just have to make a tonearm for Grado cartridges parallel to the one i am developing now.
more on this later so please don't push me for details now.
i will present it when the time is right.
i will get some pics of the arm and cartridge up soon, like this weekend....

regards,
bas

[orthobiz]

Magnepan? Tonearm? Learn something new every day!

P{aul

[TheChairGuy]

Grado's like the longer arms, bas.

Tracking is often a weak point for it....that's largely overcome with the use of hyperelliptical, nude styli and the better inherent tracking of the longer arms.

I've not tried my Grado's with anything but the Longhorn mods on the longer arms...but the benefit, to me, on the 9" arms I started twiddling with the Longhorn on was so impactful I'm not sure I want to tamper further.

With the Grado Gold1/nude shibata stylus from G1+ and the Longhorn mods on fluid or electronic damped arms of the JVC QL-Y66F (10" arm) and VPI Classic (10.5" arm) the results are stunning.

Piano, the absolutely hardest instrument to get exactly right - sounds more right than any modestly priced analog front end ought to handle it. Possibly the only thing that may have more density of sound that the Grado on these is the $5000 Strain Gauge from SoundSmith I heard.

Size matters to Grado 

[bastlnut]

hallo,

i like longer tonearms too, that is why i have two 12" arms and one 9/10" on my turntable.
my Grado the New Statement is on my light Stax UA90 tonearm, also CF and unipivot.   
so i guess the Stax is the ultimate Grado tonearm, but the Maggie does a real good job 

TCG, it is time you got a better Grado! the Master would be a good step up.

i am not so sure that Grado cartridges have a problem tracking, i think it is all the poor quality tonearms used.
Grado themselves say that it is no problem using them with a 16g tonearm.
they do work on them but really sing on light tonearms.
i think that the geometry of the pivot on a gimbal tonearm has a large affect on the Grado suspension.
install a Grado on a unipivot and you are half way there already, and without any longhorn or other mods.
mine tracks at 1,4g with no tracking weaknesses at all!
must be the not so good gimbal arms that force the 1,6g and higher VTF.
the longhorn just bulks up the cartridge weight and increases the eff. mass of the arm/cartridge system.
this goes against all the benefits of using a light tonearm with a Grado cartridge.
it really must be the result of the pivot  design.

regards,
bas

[TheChairGuy]

Bas,

A friendly member here ( no longer posts much but may still lurk) offered me a 4 week loan of his Woody Grado - it may have been the Master. At the time, 2 years ago it was a $1200 model - nude tip and ellipsoid (as Grado refers to their better shibata models)

I thought my longhorn Gold1 with G1+ sounded better time after time after time I heard them. I was surprised too as the assembled parts were a quarter of the $1200 cost.

In fairness, I was using the newer 1 series motor versus the older series...but it wasn't that much of a contest to these ears. The Master was very nice; my conglomeration sounded other worldly good 

I'm not primping myself with that statement - it's just the way it came down, conclusively, time and time comparing the two. It was on an electronically damped but gimbaled 10" arm of my DD JVC.

John

[BaMorin]

hallo,

i like longer tonearms too, that is why i have two 12" arms and one 9/10" on my turntable.
my Grado the New Statement is on my light Stax UA90 tonearm, also CF and unipivot.   
so i guess the Stax is the ultimate Grado tonearm, but the Maggie does a real good job 

TCG, it is time you got a better Grado! the Master would be a good step up.

i am not so sure that Grado cartridges have a problem tracking, i think it is all the poor quality tonearms used.
Grado themselves say that it is no problem using them with a 16g tonearm.
they do work on them but really sing on light tonearms.
i think that the geometry of the pivot on a gimbal tonearm has a large affect on the Grado suspension.
install a Grado on a unipivot and you are half way there already, and without any longhorn or other mods.
mine tracks at 1,4g with no tracking weaknesses at all!must be the not so good gimbal arms that force the 1,6g and higher VTF.
the longhorn just bulks up the cartridge weight and increases the eff. mass of the arm/cartridge system.
this goes against all the benefits of using a light tonearm with a Grado cartridge.
it really must be the result of the pivot  design.

regards,
bas

Agreed on both points high-lighted.  But, it may have more to do with the bearings themselves.
A needle into a caged ball can only make contact with some of the balls. Example a 5 ball race at rest the needle is at 50% weight on one ball, and 25% wieght on the two ball on either side. The remaining two balls have no contact with the needle. (depending of course on how the bearing is positioned in the arm) Linn uses a 7 ball race. Again only a portion of the balls can be in contact with the needle. During play, provided the arm tube and headshell are rigid, all the cartridge energy finds that interface as the first and main boundary to energy transfer. The needle starts bouncing around the balls. In any bearing, the more, the more noise. Unipivot, one bearing and one bearing noise. 5 bearings per side = 10 bearings making noise, and we haven't evan started to address the horizontal bearings.

I think David has stumbled upon a stagnation/chatter of the bearings in his graphs of frequency response of the Grado he listed.........and backs that up with other reports showing the same F/R........again as I posted in those posts it looks to me that the graph is showing arm resonate points.  At certain frequency(s) friction is absent, at certain frequency(s) stagnation occurs. 

I don't want to beat a dead horse here or hi-jack this thread, but the modifications I do to XA arms address bearing issues. Where the modded XA arm competes with my Linn Akito. Bests it in some areas.
But It has only two vertical bearings of sapphire, and one horizontal bearing ball on thrust plate. Sudden transient shock is taken up by the oil film of the pillar instead of the ball races in both vertical and hroizontal modes of a "standard" pivoted arm.

John mentions "density" of the music with Grado carts.......good word....opening that "density" to ultra micro dynamics is certainly key.

You raise an interesting question in me with the statement that the 8MZ smokes the Sonata in this arm.
The question being is.........was the Sonata designed to play in a much wider choice of arms with (customer) satisfactory playback?