Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

Apbii – You can see what I did to my TNT in my virtual system. I used a pneumatic suspension under the pillars - AT616’s.

I am talking about speed stability. I personally was not aware of how much wavering there was until I heard different tables next to one another in my room in direct comparison. That made it obvious.

Two ET2 arms / same cartridge. Two different tables at a time.

Recommend u take half an hour sometime and read through this.

Speed Stability

A little more about the ET2 High Pressure PSI factors as I was thinking about this. Opinions ?

The ET2 and ET 2.5 high pressure manifolds with the spindles have been already tested by a number of people including Bruce and they are stable to 20 psi.

If you are hitting plateaus at 15 – 16 -17 psi with the music there has to be something out – or someone explain to me how this can be based on the above statement. I am confused about this.

Some factors to consider.

1)It could be the arms manifold/ports/spindle. Clogged or blocked like a persons arteries when they get older. They are easily cleaned (I mean the ET2 not the actual person :^) – see the manual. Some over tighten as Frogman indicated this will warp parts of the arm. Not good. The good thing is you can loosen them up and they should go to form again if they have not been damaged. Many tighten down the bolts on either sides of the arm pillar/post to tight. I did this with my first ET2 arm years ago.

2) Air Supply system. Water/different temperatures/ quality of pressure.

3) Turntable affected by Structure Feedback – most likely and look to this first.

See my page for my sound pressure findings. It was a revelation to me.

If you think you are ok because your rack is on the concrete basement of your house - think again.
Concrete slabs are full of air pockets.

YMMV

Any other reasons why the arm would not work and sound fabulous out to 19-20 psi ?

I am really looking forward to our cartridge discussions with the ET2.0 and ET 2.5 arms. Will let someone else start this off.

Cheers

Great, informative thread that any airbearing tonearm user can benefit from. I do not have an ET arm but have the Maplenoll arm. Ketchup asked for me to share my experiences with the A-M systems silver wire. I chose several thickness of wire to see which worked better with the maplenoll airbearing arm. I had modified the original arm to install a carbon fiber arm with a yamamoto wood headshell. This allowed me to run the arm inside the armwand and through the end to tie directly into the phono amp. I mounted the phono amp directly below the maplenoll which allowed the wires to loosely dangle behind the table down to the phono amp. The wire is single strand, high purity silver and is coated with teflon. I used three different thickness from 0.015 to .005. The very fine wire is very difficult to solder(my experience as i am not great at this but works well because the limpness and weigh are so small that it does not interfere with the movement of the arm. The original arm had wire that terminated in a set of RCA jacks on the back of the table. The original wire was pretty stiff and had to be positioned well to minimize the drag on the arm. I do not know the exact gage of the original maplenoll wire but it was thicker than the 0.015 size. I ended up settling on the 0.01 thickness as i could get a good soldered connection. It did not have any appreciable increase in drag compared to the thinner wire. You can see my original ariadne table using the 0.01 wire on my system pics. As for as signal, i feel the silver wire does not cause any coloration or degradation to the signal from the cartridge. The A-M system wire is used in the medical industry for leads on some pretty sensitive instruments where signal degradation is important so that helped sway my opinion.

Other key points to the tonearm performance is levelness, Proper air pressure and air cleanliness. One item that is discussed on other threads is the absolute mass of the cartridge and tone arm system. The lighter, the better. I know my carbon fiber arm upgrade improved the performance of my table as compared to the original aluminum arm. I use the ZYX universe on the airbearing arm. It is lighter than some of the other cartridges and IMO a great fit for the airbearing arms

Re compliance of the I beam springs: my ET2 came with two I beams of different compliances. The lower compliance is achieved by using two (instead of one) leaf springs glued together. It is possible to lower the compliance further (which is what I did with my third I beam) by super-gluing a thin piece of metal to the existing double spring thus further stiffening it. Ct, when you refer to the stock I beam, I don't know wether what you have is the version with the single or double leaf spring. BTW, I believe Bruce Thigpen makes reference to the different I beams in the manual.

Re the ideal PSI issue: the arm can indeed sound fabulous at 19 or higher psi. But, the result may not be ideal in every system. In mine, the slightly warmer and rounder sound a15-17 psi was preferable.

Re what cartridges to use, I have had success with both Mm and MC types. The best (my favorite) combination was the Monster AG2000. In general, and contrary to the opinion of some, lowish compliance carts seem to work best with this arm; although I have gotten good results with MM's, particularly the Empire D4000.

In brief summary - don't want to get too much involved here - my experiences with the ET 2 and 2.5:

- air pressure (and by chance pulse frequency on the air stream) can have a huge effect on the sound quality. Above a certain pressure the arm can display problems. Up to this "break-point" the sound gets ever more precise and bass gains in "attack" and air.
While the air bearing and tangential principle allow the ET2/2.5 to shine in soundstage and separation, it too sets the limits of it's ability to present authority and attack in the lower bass. This is not a problem of the ET however, but a problem - IMHO - of air bearings in tonearm.

- I always had best results with cartridges with low compliance, rigid internal construction and low body weight. Early ZYX (Monster's AG2000 was an OEM ZYX) and FR-1 MK3F in particular.

- In summary and IMHO, the ET2/2.5 can still give any other tangential tonearm a very hard time and real competition - no matter the price tag.
I modified mine quite a lot and tweaked it to what I think are the limits of it's design.
I loved that tonearm and always will.
To me the best price performance ratio in tangential tonearms and for opera-lovers maybe THE tonearm to go for.

Cheers,
D.

Dertonarm's observations are spot on, and mirror mine. His comment about the ET being THE tonearm for opera lovers may raise some eyebrows, but is particularly insightful. For me, the two greatest attributes of this tonearm are it's correct and midrange-complete tonal balance (what some would describe, incorrectly, as too soft), and it's ability to realistically separate individual instruments and groups of instruments. With opera, and how it is typically recorded, it's reproduction of voices (with correct tonal fullness and dimensionality), and the spatial relationship between those voices and the orchestra in the pit is wonderful.