Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

Dover
Ct0517 - I would not run an ET downhill, but I get the overhang argument.

Dover – oh I get it. But I will also admit I have never experimented with making the ET2 armtube go past or stop short of the target point. I did not feel a need to because of the design. I felt I would be compromising it. Add it to the audio bucket list.

Pivot arms are different though – I have experimented because of the design and gone outside of protractor lines. I am in agreement with what Geoch said in my earlier post where I linked his contribution to an alignment thread.

Dover

NOW HERE IS ANOTHER POSER to ponder :
With a pivoted arm we have an overhang. The pivot arm/stylus tip moves in an arc, which means that for every 1.8 seconds ( 1 rotation ) the stylus tip has actually moved slightly forward with each rotation.

Put another way if you put the stylus tip in the first groove, and draw a tangent to the spindle centre, then with each rotation the stylus tip will move further ahead from that tangent.

This means that to achieve the correct playback speed, with a pivoted arm, then the TT needs to speed up with each rotation.

Well this IS very interesting. Again I have never considered this with my pivot arms. A changing variable with every rotation. Hmm…...Let me think about it.. Hopefully the pivot arm “devotees” here can chime in ?

Dover I am starting to wonder how many more of these “NOW HERE IS ANOTHER POSER to ponder” posts you have lined up for us to consider ?

Dear Chris, I'm on vacations and I can only use my mobile to respond.
So :
I agree with what Dover said.
We have to accept this fact but we must also note and realize that :
For an overhang of 17mm at the full side of an LP (22min=1320sec=733rotations) the displacement per rotation is 0.0232mm.
This particular kind of progressive speed break that takes place, it is just impossible to perceived by our senses as speed variation or pitch instability, but of course we can clearly witness a unique phenomenon of a flowing without friction that results only from the allways perfect tangential TRACE and this is the part of interest, not the effect of the perfect SPEED.
Now, to be able to take any advantage of this quality, one has to take care a number of concerns that perhaps this thread brings over, (I'm sorry it is impossible to read the whole thread on my ancient mobile phone) but one of the most curious that I've witness is the cartridge great VTF, great actual physical weight and relatively low catilever's compliance. I don't know if your experiments with MM carts brings forth any issues reg. all of the above, but my own living with Piere Lurnee SL5 & Goldmund T4 with MC's was reflecting this preference. I know these were 2 bad examples of Tangential arms but this is my limited experience and this is also the reason that I abandoned the Parallel tracking chapter. I've allways had lusting over an Air Tangent but the cost of purchase was 13000 euro five years back and lefts me wanting. I'm sorry but I can't be of any help here and somehow I feel that I'm embarrassing your findings with my own contradictions. It is just a different path that I take here, (as with my speakers, my DHT line pre & SET/OTL power amps) and although not clearly a preferance for pivoted over tangential, my favorite cartridges direct me this path .

About the alignment post on Pivoted arms:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1343550512&openfrom&21&4#21
Take care

Thx Geoch for seeing my email :^) and providing input.

With an air bearing arm like the ET2 my personal experience has told me that 1) Arm/Table Design and 2)Execution, are of equal importance. I have and do run low and high compliance / VTF cartridges. The cartridge that can be seen on my SP10 in my virtual page is a Sonus Blue Gold. 50 x 10-6cm/Dyne with a triple leaf spring. Likewise I was running an XV1 for many years as well.

I am sure Frogman/Dover can add their more vast cartridge experiences than mine to my observation.

Hmmm.. since Nikola is a bit linear arm gun shy maybe I should extend the ET2 offer to you.... Just kidding I know you are very busy with family .... if interested let me know.

Cheers

Dg, I use a continuous run from cartridge clips to phono stage, where it is soldered directly to the circuit board. I don't know the resistance spec for the AN wire. I can tell you that it is by far my favorite in comparison to the VDH silver clad copper, Cardas, and Discovery which I have used in the past. I still have the Cardas and Discovery looms which I have used since getting the AN, simply to confirm the improvements with the AN. The AN is a great wire, IMO.

Thanks, Frogman, I'll give it a try. I only asked for its resistance over length to get a general sense of whether such fine filament wire makes sense for a long run. Obviously typical phono applications enlist tonearm wire for the short run from cartridge to RCA or XLR connector block.