ZYX too light for my Shroeder arm. Help

Brnlaw,

Unfortunately, the silver base cannot be added by the owner. It is permanently installed by Nakatsuka-san during assembly of the cartridge.

Doug

P.S. For fun, I've tried using external headshell weights with a ZYX. Bad idea. The sound, while weightier, went smeared and murky. It lost that astonishing clarity that makes a ZYX a ZYX.

Frank makes a brass mounting plate for the No.2 which should fit better with the ZYX. The ZYX Bloom R50 I had had a really low compliance and needed a real heavy arm.

I have the R50 Bloom, are the other models in the zyx line more suitable to the shroeder?

My ZYX R-1000 Airy S balanced fine on the Graham tonearm but I wanted to add a bit weight to emulate the silver base. Solution? Use stainless steel screw and nut. I used 3 nuts with each screw to maximize the weight. The extra weights does make it sound cleaner and tighter.

Please take Doug's comments in light of his experimentation with non-Schroeders.

You will always have a "shim" with a Shroeder (a.k.a. cartridge carrier). Give this reality, you have the opportunity to tune the mass of your arm in two ways: (1) make a thicker one up out of aluminum (2) get the brass one through your dealer.

The brass adds about 5 grams (bumping the mass from about 2.6 to 7.6 g).

Now, with brass you're changing the interface between cartridge and tonearm. When you change materials and this is always a wild card. For this reason, I'd try both a thicker piece of aluminum (try a piece 3 times your current thickness) as well as the brass.

You'll likely prefer one over the other, and remember that this is not a universal judgment but rather a preference you'll have with your ZYX.

Making up your own thicker carrier isn't rocket science. The pivot hole is a 2.5mm x .7mm tapped hole, and the two cartridge holes aren't threaded.

Your tool set consists of a hack saw, a mill file, a drill along with a bit/tap set. Assuming you have most of the above, the tap/drill bit would set you back a whole $5.00.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galiber