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Tone Arm Mass

Hello world. So here's my issue. (Well, one of them.) I have a Well Tempered Classic table with the carbon fiber arm, and a shelter 901 cartridge. I spent much time setting the table up, and was not satisfied. Lowing VTA, raising VTA… aligning and realigning … The lower mids and bass just were just weak.

Then I read about a thing called "compliance."

The Shelter is low compliance, which means that it should have a more massive arm – at least more massive than the WT. I bought a 3gm headshell weight, and low and behold, more bass, more life – I finally felt I was hearing what the 901 was capable of.

Thing is, I think if the arm had still more mass, it would improve the sound. Specifically, make the lower octaves more pronounced. More bass. What say you all?

How would I go about adding mass to my existing tone arm (buying a new one, or new table is unfortunately out of the question at this point.)

The rest of my system:

CAT SL Mark III preamp (100 ohm load on the 901.)
Quicksilver v4s
Vandy 2CE Sig
PS 300
Richard Gray 1200

Thanks for your time!
rada

Showing 1 response by rauliruegas

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rauliruegas
12,759 posts
 
Dear Rada: Other what you already do it ( and you can go on to some limit. ) there are somethings that can/could affect the bass performance ( other than VTA that you already try it ): azimuth, VTF, on target cantilever align ( not the cartridge body ), precise tonearm set-up and overhang.

Of course that a different phono stage can/could makes a difference over your CAT but like you say this is: out of question.

You can try on the load impedance but if you go from 100 Ohms to 300-500 Ohms and you hear a difference in the bass performance other than a little change on SPL then you have to change that CAT because that kind of change on impedance IMHO can't/could't affect the quality bass response.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.
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