Tonearm recommendation


Hello all,
Recently procured a Feickert Blackbird w/ the Jelco 12 inch tonearm.
The table is really good, and its a keeper. The Jelco is also very good, but not as good as my Fidelity Research FR66s. So the Jelco will eventually hit Ebay, and the question remains do I keep the FR66s or sell that and buy something modern in the 5-6 K range. My only point of reference is my old JMW-10 on my Aries MK1, so I don't know how the FR66s would compare to a modern arm. So I'd like to rely on the collective knowledge and experience of this group for a recommendation.

Keep the FR66s, or go modern in the 5-6K range, say a Moerch DP8 or maybe an SME.

Any and all thoughts and opinions are of course much appreciated.

Cheers,      Crazy Bill
wrm0325
Don (Griffiths),  Evidently you don't follow Halcro's thread on "living dangerously" with DD turntables.  If you did, you would know that I have had a heck of a time with my TT101 and after more than a year (maybe more than 2 years) I have only recently made some headway in making it work reliably. (That's the key word, "reliably".)  In the process, I have spent nearly $1000, but that's probably a fair price for a refurbished TT101.  So, I didn't really "score" after all, but I went into it with eyes wide open.

Raul,

Remember on Halcro's 'DD living dangerously' thread, it was apparent you didn't know S/N spec limitations of a turntable?  Guess what?

** """" When you adopt a different alignment you're also changing effective length and offset angle. """"

This kind of sentences speaks of that audiophile mediocrity/low knowledge level where we " audiophiles " are " swiming " through.**

You've done it again.

Regards,


Lewm,

It has been a while since I have visited Halcros thread. You last post sort of flipped on the light bulb sort of to speak! I had honestly forgot that it was you that had that troublesome table that has been the main topic of discussion for the last several months. There’s no price you can put on that nightmare, but if all it cost you in a finanicial sense was $1000 then you still got a good deal.
Ever heard the term ’brain fart’! I think I just experienced one in regards to your input on the ’living dangerously thread’! (grin) Please forgive my lapse of memory!   It's hell getting old!
Regards,
Ain't it, though.  I like to pretend it isn't happening to me.
So, back to tonearms, in deference to Wrm:  I don't think the 7045 competes with an FR64S or 66S, except where the latter two may have too high an effective mass in relation to the (high) compliance of the desired cartridge, and except for those who are in Raul's camp vis a vis the FR tonearms. (I have formed no opinion yet, since my FR64S is to be used with my TT101.  Thus the FR64S is a lady in waiting.) I still plan to take a look at how various tonearms resonate, once I find appropriate software to do this on a Mac.  Apparently there are several good choices for spectrum analysis programs, if one is using a PC.

Dear fleib: Not really. Let that I try to explain all that. As you I 'm talking of standards alignments as both Loefgren A and B solutions ( Baerwald/Loefgren. ):

in the midel of the 20's a gentleman named Wilson was ( I think. ) the one that for the first time " touched " the overall tonearm alignment importance, that's all I know about Mr. Wilson and I don't know if he gaves any mathematic solutions.
In 1938 Loefgren was who goes in deep about and who gaves those both solutions/equations ( Baerwald solution comes latter and " even " the Loefgren A solution. ).
In those Loefgren equations the main target is to find out the precise offset angle and overhang with foundation/knowing the tonearm effective lenght ( L in the equtions. ) and radius of the Lp grooved  surface ( most inner and outer LP groove recorded area. ). For difference between that L and the overhang the Loefgren solutions achieve the distance between tonearm pivot to TT spindle. The L does not change in those Loefgren standard solutions, what changed is the offset angle, pivot to spindle and overhang values.

Now, we can do whatever we want with those equations but this is not the subject. Even we can have " hundred " of additional alignment solutions using Excel and other mahematics tools ( we can change the effective lenght in a tonearm through several kind of solutions and we can have different offset angles, overhang and null points too but is useless to do it. ) but again this is not the subject here.

My point explained through the example I posted with two different alignment solution for the same tonearm where does not change the effective lenght, I don't want that the effective lenght changed.
What I said is that if with the same tonearm we use two diferent alignment set up and in both alignments we have a " perfect " accuracy no one can detect the diferences in distortion levels because are so tiny and changing groove after groove that makes even tiny those distortion levels. Imposible to detect it.

So, for me is futile/useless try to make changes where those distortions happen in the recorded LP surface becaus we can't detect it and as I posted maybe we can " imagine " that hear the differences it because we " want " to hear differences when in reality we can't.
Just think how can you detect 0.15% of that kind of distortion and through each single LP groove that 0.15% goes down to 0.04%  and up to 0.21%.  Can you?

IMHO we don't have to worry about with tonearm alignment solution choosed the tonearm manufacturer or any one of us what we must worried is that the manufacturer gaves us his tonearm with a " perfect accurate " JIG to make with extremely precision/cero tolerance the tonearm set up in these 3 parameters:

- accurate set up distance from our each one TT spindle to Tonearm pivot. If this distance has not 100% of accuracy then it does not matters the accuracy level in the other set up parameters.

- accurate cartridge offset angle and

- accurate cartridge set up overhang.


That's all. No one needs or has to invent the " black thread ".


Regards and enjoy the music,
R.