Audiocraft AC400/4400.....need help


A friend has a very nice Micro Seiki BL101 belt drive table with a very trick looking Audiocraft unipivot tonearm mounted. It appears to have a 10 or 11" arm length, S shaped, removable wand, and is gold satin in finish. We are pretty sure it is a AC400 or AC4400 model. We could not get a Denon DL103R balanced with the standard counterweight even if the weight was pulled so far back it was almost falling off. I suspect we need help! I found a manual some time back but the link no longer works.

anybody out there know of these arms and how to use them? Did they sell different wands for different weight cartridges (like Fidelity Research)?

Thanks,
Carl
c123666
Hi Carl,

I have an Audiocraft AC400C on my Micro Seiki FVG-1500. I have also owned the Audiocraft AC300C arm on a Micro Seiki BL-91 and did use the DL103D on that arm without any problems.

I suggest that you contact Brooks Berdan at Brooks Berdan Ltd. He is one of the best analog people in the industry. 626-359-9131.

Best,

Barry Kohan

Disclaimer: Brooks Berdan Ltd. is a dealer for my company's products.
Turns out there is a heavy counterweight available for this arm; fellow at Axxis advised me of this. It costs 150 and is available; this is why the cartridge did not work, perhaps. The Dl103R is not a very heavy cartridge, though; hmmm.
Carl,

This is only a suggestion. Why don't you find a small weight and tape this to the bottom of the counterweight. This will work best if the counterweight is adjusted by means of sliding along the back section of the tonearm.

This way you can get the cartridge balanced and you can try out the tonearm. Being a unipivot it may not be the most suitable for the Denon which is a low compliance cartridge.
Dear Carl: You can go to: www.audiolimits.com or to
www.walrus.co.uk, these two are Audiocraft dealers and maybe you can buy there a counterweight that match your cartridge or a new arm wand that match your cartridge/counterweight.
I own the AC 4400 with three diferents arm wand, one of these are the s shaped that needs a lateral counterweight LWS-1. When the cartridge is a heavy one then you have to use the subweight: SW-12 that you screw at the back of the tonearm ( where the main counterweight goes ). Now, the main counterweight is in reality a double weight, I try to explain this: the counterweight has two rings one is the gauge ring ( it is at front ) the second ring ( behind the gauge ring ) is an adjustement ring, if you slide this ring the counterweight split in two parts and in this way you can have a bigger ( large ) counterweight with more weight at the back of the tonearm.
The english is not my native language, so I'm sorry for it.
Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.
Hi: Other solution is: find a low weight headshell.
Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.