Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

Hi Dave

Fixing the Level situation with a turntable design like the TNT is doable.
If the ET2 air bearing design (very smooth) raises the bar, and forces an owner to take notice and become more anal about leveling their TT (any TT). Then I say so be it, because in the end it means better health for the records and the cartridge.

Unfortunately I am not aware of any " pill " for groove anxiety.

Cheers Chris

Hi Chris,

It only happens rarely.  Please don't tell Bruce!  lol

Best to you Chris,
Dave

Hi Nikola.

the other thing I want to mention is that pivot arms produce more resonance at the bearing. Bruce has actually measured this and documented it in the manual.

Now I base this on my personal experiences as a music lover / sometimes audiophile :^)

The most resonance can be heard in the bass.You need to get the bass right in any room. If someone wants to call this resonance - distortion - feel free. Air Bearing linear trackers produce less distortion - less resonance.

This means the overall room setup like speaker placement used, may need to change to satisfy some, because you are dealing with less distortion. Those that make comparisons and never move their speakers to accommodate the two pivot and air bearing designs, are not comparing properly. This can prove very difficult in some rooms if the speakers weigh 200 lbs. Especially with older audiophiles who have moved their final speaker to its resting place, and now focus only on the small components/cabling, etc....

Everything in audio is fixable with an understanding of ones’s overall room setup. Those on the forums especially Professionals that say the bass lacks on an air bearing - they are not focused on the overall room setup.

fwiw

I shared private emails with your friend Daniel. Dertonarm. He was very helpful when I was researching the Verdier. When I changed the topic to the ET2 - as you know he owned many tonearms, I discovered his preference was to go against the ET2 manual instructions and place as much weight as possible, close to the air bearing spindle. With the ET2 stock design - this produces the most resonance, and the most ill defined bass in my rooms. If you see him remind him of our conversation.

Cheers Chris

Hi Chris,

Had to break in here to adamantly endorse your statement:

"The most resonance can be heard in the bass.You need to get the bass right in any room."

This includes vibration-reduction to/from components. Working on that right now. Big gains with minimal investment.

Best to you Chris,
Dave 
 

Thread Drive
For those interested in thread drive I own and have owned both a Final Audio VTT1 thread drive and the Platine Verdier referred to above. My understanding from Final Audio's point of view is that the optimum pulley profile should be hemispherical concave for thread drive.

I found that the Final and Verdier incompatible as far as optimum thread selection. For the Final Audio I use a very fine braided suture silk thread from Davis & Geck - this has high tensile strength and good grip. This thread  sounded awful on the Verdier. The Platine Verdier sounded much better with a larger diameter softer silk/linen thread. As an aside the rubber belt option for the Verdier is appalling- you can see the rubber belt drifting up and down the platter due to the fact that the rubber belt has large variations in its "round" profile. 

Fwiw the Final Audio has an audibly superior motor drive system to the Verdier, much quieter, less noise and vastly superior in speed accuracy. I was easily able to prove this by running the Verdier Platter from the Final Audio motor drive. In the end I gave up on the Verdier, since the Final Audio is so much better the Verdier never got used.