Looking for thoughts from Nottingham Analog table owners

*Disclaimer: I am a dealer for Pear Audio Analogue products.

The Pear Audio Blue Kid Thomas, Kid Punch and Kid Howard are the ONLY turntables that were actually designed by the late, great Tom Fletcher, other then the older Nottingham Audio models.

With all due respect to bcowan, the Pear Audio turntables and tonearms are quite different in construction, fit and finish than the old Nottingham products.  I have owned a few Nottingham models in the past and I will say that the Pear Audio turntables surpass the Notts in virtually every way.  For example, while the Pear Audio Cornet 2 tonearm resembles the old Space/Anna tonearms, it is quite improved in construction and sound.

I have taken Palmers in trade for Pear Audio models and I again must say that there is simply no comparison.  Palmer copied some of Tom Fletcher's ideas but ruined the benefits by uselessly elevating the platter and tonearm (remember kids, low center of gravity is your friend) and sitting the motor unit inside the plinth with minimal damping.  The first time I demo'd a Kid Thomas for a customer in his home, side by side with his Palmer, his wife (upstairs) yelled down to ask what he did to improve the sound.  It was THAT noticeable.

What are the associated components in your demo system at your dealership?

fjn04,

In the example described above, the demo was in the customer's home.  LFD phono stage, LFD integrated amp, Harbeth speakers (don't remember which model).

In my room I demo Pear Audio Blue turntables with a variety of components: Pear Audio tube phono stages, preamps and tube amps, Larsen speakers, GamuT amps and speakers, and EARO active horn speakers.

Been a while but I finally found a super deal on a Nottingham Spacedeck cw Spacearm and a nearly new Shelter 501 mk3 cart.
Setup was no harder than any other tt with the right tools so no worries there and there is zero noise, in fact its a very black background.
A little odd though was the fact that the arm was wired with xlr connectors at the end, my phono (Dynavector p75 mk3) does not support xlr so had to buy a pair of xlr-rca adapters.
The sound?
Heaven!
So much air and soul to the music even on less than stellar discs, somehow it manages to surpress the worst crackles and concentrate on the music.

I did a direct a/b to a digital file of a lp I was playing and it just sounded like a mp3 file even though it was a full wav file.
Don't get me wrong I love the convenience of digital but this reminds me why I do not mind getting up every 20 minutes or so to change the side!

I have owned the Spacedeck and Space Arm for about 6 years now and am pretty happy with it, aside from the cueing mechanism needing to be replaced as I type this and wait for the new unit to arrive.  I have a very slight 60hz hum at VERY high volume levels. I can move the connectors from the TT to the phonostage around a bit and get louder or softer hum, so I have compensated by arranging those in a configuration that results in the lowest hum possible.  When I switch the input to a digital one, the hum instantly vanishes so I am reasonably sure the issue resides somewhere between my cartridge and the outputs on my phonostage.

Oh man, you nailed it perfectly bcowen, the two things that irritate me most about this system are those you mentioned.....azimuth adjustment (or lack thereof) and the collet around the armpost!!!  While I AM able, unlike you, to twist the headshell on the end of the arm (a very suspect process as it imparts a lot of torque to the graphite arm which is very concerning), it is HIGHLY unlikely that you will get an accurate result unless you are just plain lucky.  Having a friend with a Fozgometer, we worked for quite a while before getting a setting that the meter showed to be proper, and then it was close, not perfect but I'll live with that.  The second thing, tightening the collet around the armpost, just makes no sense to me at all because, if you hold the tonearm with your left hand while tightening the collet, you can FEEL the arm moving out of the original position as you tighten the grub screws!  So, reflecting on what Mr. Fletcher has said on many occasions, "the meaning of tight," I have found that by just a VERY light snugging of first one, then the other, then back again to the first, repeating this at least 3-4 times whilst holding the tonearm in the other hand has resulted in not much, if any motion imparted by the tightening to the position of the arm.  That's how I do it anyway, and I only tighten it enough to keep it from moving when I use the cueing mechanism.  This you will need to experiment with but with GREAT CAUTION as one that is too loose can result in the tonearm moving across your record as you try to lift it up with the cueing mechanism and that has obvious undesirable consequences.

Hope that helps you out some in your contemplations. 

Meanwhile, my effort at restoring the old lift mechanism (see my earlier post this week) resulted in failure.  Couldn't find the proper lube here locally and was just about to order some of the Kyosho 500,000 cSt stuff online when under close inspection, found that the end of the piston where it engages with the cam was worn to some extent so decided to pop for a new one from the US distributor in Florida, Hollywood Sound, who by the way are very good to work with and offer a very personalized level of service, taking time to talk with me about the issue I was having and providing some excellent guidance without which I would still be trying to figure out how to get the old one off!  No affiliation, rest assured, just a happy customer who does not hesitate to pass on good recommendations to my friends where they are warranted.  Talked with "Marc," by the way, and he's a gentleman......