Adding mass to a tonearm

As someone else wrote, adding mass to the headshell most certainly DOES increase the effective mass of the tonearm, by a factor roughly equal to the added mass, in grams. (As you move down the tonearm toward the pivot, the effect of adding mass at any point on effective mass lessens proportionately.)  Adding mass to the headshell will also cause you to need to move the counter-weight further back away from the pivot, in order to counter-balance the added mass and achieve the same VTF.  Doing that ALSO will increase the effective mass of the tonearm, by a factor equal to the square of the change in distance from the pivot to the center of mass of the CW, times the mass of the CW.  

From what I have been able to learn without owning a DL103 or 103R, there is almost no limit to the effective mass that those cartridges might "like".  One of my friends uses a home-made tonearm with his DL103 which appears to have an eff mass of nearly 50g! (Probably I am exaggerating, but it's mass-ive.)  I would suggest just experimenting with added mass at the headshell (and correspondingly re-balancing your tonearm) until you reach an effective mass that seems to be optimal for your cartridge. Then use a test LP to guesstimate the resonant frequency.

Dear @last_lemming:  I'm a little confused with your thread. First I seen you own the VPI TT, I don't know where the PL-530 could be the subject.

In the other side, which kind of problems already experienced with that Pionner TT and the 103R?

If what you want is to stay inside the 8hz-12hz  desirable resonance frequency you really need to know the real effective mass of your tonearm when the 103R is mounted and to take in count on that tonearm effective mass calculations the precise position where the tonearm counterweigth is " seated " because any minute changes in the counterweigth position affects those calculations. 

All depends what and why  you want to do that. Ask you before make anything.

Btw, you don't need to add weigth to the headshell you just need to change it for other with higher " natural " weigth.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

Raul -

 I have two systems, my "fun" system which has the pioneer Pl-530, and what I consider my "high end" system which has my VPI Prime.  I'm only talking about my  The system that has the Pioneer, which has the Denon PL-103r. The only reason I was asking about adding high is because I've read that the 80's turntables with "S" arms are lower mass and that the Denon likes a higher mass  tonearm.   I cannot find any specific literature about the Pioneers S arm and what it's effective mass is.  

While the Denon sounds really good right now in the system I was just wondering how much I was "leaving on the table" by not having a higher mass arm, this led me  wanting to experiment and see what I could achieve with higher mass tweaks. 

Dear @last_lemming : Ok. What you can do is to buy a higher weigth headshell and see what happen.

Now, when we change the headshell from with the cartridge is mounted for other diferent headshell it does not matters its weigth ( well it matters but... ) the changes in the " new " quality level performance comes not only from the weigth but from the new headshell build material, new headshell build shape and the new headshell wiresa/connectors. So, its not easy to say if the changes for the better or bad quality comes from the diferent weigth.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

First, I don't believe that "S" arms are necessarily lower mass.  That will be a function of the material the arm was formed from, how thick the walls, the length, and so on.  If fact for a given length, a straight arm with offset headshell will likely be lighter than an S arm with the same effective length when other factors are equal.

However, to experiment, you could take a small ball of Blu-tak or plumber's putty weighing a gram or two (use your VTF scale) and affix that to the headshell, rebalance the arm, and see if this offers any sonic/tracking improvement.  If so, keep adding weight until it becomes worse, then reduce it to the optimal.  If no improvement was observed, then forget about it.

Note if that does give an improvement you should be able to determine how much mass could be added for a more permanent solution.