Peter Reinders PTP Solid 12 Turntable with Thomas Schick Arm.

Audiolab 7000 Series - Now available at HiFiMART.com
haha...you are curious eh?? just kidding.well to answer your question, no the previous owner is not an Indian or in India. I had to import it and deal with the customs issues.
 
@hari, the word "stiffness" as applicable to arms can be interpreted in two ways. First, to describe whether the arm tube is flexing or not. An example is titanium arm tubes which have a reputation of very high rigidity combined with low mass for the same volume. Example is SME V. A flexing arm tube is undesirable because it produces its own frequency, however low in frequency and scale. A second way of looking at "stiffness" is the stickiness of the bearings caused by friction in the bearings, and this is the common usage of the word in relation to tonearms. Modern arms tend to have very fancypants bearings rated at ABEC7 or higher and they're practically frictionless.

I guess the term you were looking for was effective mass.
 
Thanks again. I was trying to understand if high mass of tone arm contribute any way to high softness ( low compliance of the arm).

If arm mass is low does that mean it's a low stiffness arm ( high compliance arm). This information probably help to select suitable cartridges imo.

Does this also mean arm effective mass is the important parameter and not it's compliance (stiffness).

Curious to know.
 
The term compliance is used for cartridges, not tonearms. Tonearms are defined by their effective mass. I'm not aware of any arm manufacturer giving numbers for the stiffness or rigidity of their arm, even though they may claim that the arm tube is a high rigidity design, etc.
 
Since the turntable is an exteremely sensitive device when it comes to vibration pickup, the overall resonance of the system ie combination of the total weight of Tonearm+ Cartridge and the compliance of the cartridge needs to be matched up..as Joshua has mentioned above. If not right it will either pickup a lot of noise eg if low , pickup of footfalls on the floor or record imperfections and magnify them OR if too high the sound will be too distorted.

You will want to keep this usually between 7-10 hz but it is not exact since many tonearms are damped by oil etc so this is a statistical approximation.

The way to calculate is via a formula, but there are lots of online calculators available...i have used this- http://www.resfreq.com/resonancecalculator.html

Mass can be played around with eg i have used copper Euro one cent coin over the headshell to increase the mass ;)
 
jls001 said:
The term compliance is used for cartridges, not tonearms. Tonearms are defined by their effective mass. I'm not aware of any arm manufacturer giving numbers for the stiffness or rigidity of their arm, even though they may claim that the arm tube is a high rigidity design, etc.
Click to expand...
If i could add a little more, they use effective mass since the importance is to be given to the mass at the cartridge tip..since the tonearm is usually suspended at a point and there is a counterweight at the other end which works the other way to the weight. Hence it a combination of inertias of all components and their impact at the cartridge tip ..and hence how it works in conjunction with the compliance or "Springiness" of the cartridge tip

The %contribution to mass at the cartridge tip will be lowest for the farther most point in the tonearm and highest to the part just above the cartrige..hence the effective mass above the cartridge is looking at the contribution of each section of a tonearm .

so it is quite different just the weight of the tonearm
 
Which is more preferable- lighter or heavier arm?

Lighter arm allows you to track with less tracking force while heavier arm reduces resonance.
 
My Thorens TP-16 isotrack tone arm is very light (just 7.5gms mass). I have used a low compliance cartridge (10 cu) and it sounds great. My Ortofon cartridge (25 cu) was not sounding that organic like the Technics which has a 3D holographic sound stage.

There is also some confusion on how the manufacturer states the compliance of the cartridge - American cartridges state compliance @ 10Hz while
European & Japanese state at 100Hz. There is also one formula to multiply it by 1.5 or 2 to arrive @ 10Hz. I am not sure in which category the Technics cartridge fall. If its 10 cu is @ 100Hz then it is 20 cu @ 10Hz.
 
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yeah some folks give average compliance and some give min etc. thats the problem in our hobby. very little standardization and much of the measurement does not really measure what we want it to :)
 
heavy arm with high compliance cart = shock absorber breaks

High compliance carts work well with low mass arms

anyways.. many experts here.. :cool:
 
i missed that and agree with sachu. put the nos (Tonearm + cart mass) along with the compliance in the linked calculator above and you will see.

But in the end trust your ears more :)
 
sachu888 said:
Its exact opposite.

Regards
Sachin
Click to expand...
Got it. Easier to understand with anology of a vehicle - heavier vehicles will have heavier suspension (low compliance) and lighter vehicle will have lighter suspension (high compliance).
 
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I own Lenco L 75 with PTP 4 and Thomas Shick tonearm. I have come to the conclusion that the Denon DL 103 is the most affordable ideal partner for the arm. One of the best turntables I posses with a fantastic timing. The best I have for playing rock and fast numbers because the timing is excellent. You get the feeling of being involved.
 
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