Technics SL 1100A & Sl 1210MK2 ToneArm Upgrades

I have an SL1210 M5G (better tonearm wire to start) with the KAB fluid damper and an LPGear Zupreme (probably Jelco sourced) headshell. That improved it quite a bit, but the finishing touch was wrapping the tonearm in some teflon pipe thread tape. Eliminated the upper midrange glare and relaxed the whole sound.

02-06-10: Agypsy
hmmm...never heard of the teflon wrapping technique. does that really work? do you have any pics?

That's because I thought it up myself. I was inspired by another HFC-er who highly recommended the Tonearm Wrap from MusicDirect for $19.99. Knowing that Teflon thread tape is incredibly light, non-adhesive, and therefore totally reversible, I tried that out instead--for about 14 cents. I was very happy with the results and more than a year later it's still there.

For pics see this and this. Notice that I wind around the knurled collar that holds the headshell on as well. I found that ring to be particularly uh... ringy. The tape is so cheap I don't mind rewinding the collar after removing and remounting the headshell.

02-07-10: Hesson11
Johnnyb53,
If someone were to look for that tape, where would he find it? And is "teflon pipe thread tape" the proper name to look for? THANKS!
-Bob

I dunno man, it's pretty exotic and expensive. :D

If you don't mind paying a whopping $1.47 instead of 28 cents, you could pick up a roll at Walgreen's.

Here's a summary at Wikipedia. It's variously called thread tape, PTFE tape, plumber's tape, thread seal tape, Teflon tape, or some combination such as Teflon thread seal tape.