yet another KAB mod question

One of the coolest KAB offerings is the drop in cabinet. Makes the table look serious.

All of this certainly sounds tempting, just to have a Table to monkey with 9Gos I wish I had some mad money to play with!)

As for the threaded Spindle, and Clamp? What's the thread size, does anybody know? One could perhaps go ala VPI, thus alleviating those nasty warped vintage (and not so vintage) records in your collection.

I had a machinist friend make a massive Alu Clamp for my VPI (Using the BDR Coaster), for very low $$$, and of course as we all know, you don't want to place a heavy clamp on these DD Tables, just one that does it's job, lessening warpage, and perhaps better coupling LP to Platter is all that's maybe needed?

I figure like this, for the average user, get mods that would be difficult to iplement by the end user done by KAB. Then one can add the simpler mods by themselves at a later date, and eventually have them all!

I agree, the "drop in" Wood Cabinet looks sweet for these, and would be an eventual consideration had I gone the Technics route. Maybe I'll eventually dump my spare mint vintage Denon DP-2550, and join the crowd? I've got two NOS AT Cartridges, and a Vintage Shure Type III, with Jico SAS just begging for play time. Mark

Another question for all you Technics experts: are there any cartridges you would NOT recommend for use with the SL1200 tonearm? For example, I have a Benz L2, a Denon 103R, and a Koetsu Black. Will I get good performance from each of those on a KAB SL1200?

On the one hand, I can't exactly say because I've only tried 3 carts on my Technics and they all worked well. On the other hand, I now have the KAB fluid damper and have played around with the compliance/effective mass equation to see what theoretically will work.

First, the fluid damper lowers the resonant hump of cartridge/arm interaction considerably.

Secondly, with the removable headshell, headshell weights, and the additional counterbalance weight, you can play with the Technics tonearm's effective mass to get a better match with a given cartridge's weight and compliance.

For example, I went from a Shure M97xe (6g, compliance of 30) to a Denon DL-160 (4g, compliance around 10-15). But I put it on a Sumiko headshell, which weighs 3.5g more than the stock headshell. It's an excellent match, and the fluid damper seems to help.

I would love to try out an Ortofon Contrapunkt, but that would have to drop into my lap from the sky right now. With the Sumiko shell and fluid damper, I bet it would sound great.

Is anyone bothered by the fact that the fluid damper blocks the indicator for the VTA?