Technics SP-10 MKIIA tonearms

I had both the EPA 100 and the 500 arms with H,M&L wands. I found the 100 to be the better arm, more dynamic and the adjustable damping made cartridge compatibility easy. It does not take though very heavy catrs though such as the Kondo IO-j. I suspect rewiring the EPA 500 armwands might have taken them above the 100. The one to get is probably the boron version, I believe that was called the EPA 100 Mk2, or the EPA 250?

Hi Radicalsteve,thanks for your input.I guess that's why the EPA-100 usually sells at a higher price.Was your EPA-100 rewired?The A250 is an S shaped armwand with detachable headshell just like the EPA-100 and is used on the EPA-500 base.I have seen the EPA-100 MKII on ebay a couple times,they seem to be rare and are pretty expensive.I believe Rual owns a EPA-100 MKII.

Dear Radicalsteve: IMHO both tonearms are very good depend the cartridge you mate with. Both are very flexible with different cartridges due to the different arm wans on the 500 and removable headshell on the 100 ( along with its adjustable damping. ).

I love the VTA mechanism on the 500 over the 100 and over many other today tonearms. I agree that both tonearms could improve its quality performance if we make a internal re-wiring, no I don't do it yet.

The EPA 100MK2 that comes with the same EPA-500 VTA mechanism has to me a Reference tonearm standard level and its effective mass is lower than the EPA-100. The bearing friction on the MK2 is almost inexistent and IMHO unique on the subject.

Technics ( a member of Panasonic and Matushita gigant. ) research and development team were second to none even in this days. THose tonearms, phono cartridges and its SP-10s TTs are a vivid " test " of that Technics dedication to the Excellence on the design and build execution of analog audio items that after all those years where were made today are still performing at high quality level.

I don't know if Fineaudio has " problems " with his EPA-100 or if he does not likes its performance with the cartridge(s) he own or maybe only want to try something different.
Anyway all of you already give him the precise answers he need it.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

I may have got the arm terminology wrong, I was thinking that the "H" was the more massive arm, that was the one I intended to recommend. The tests I referred to were the ones done on both arms in the old "Hi FI Choice" , which remain the best conducted tests I have seen.

IME tonearms were what Technics did best. In terms of quality, I consider the EPA-100MkII to be at the top of the Japanese-made tonearms (or at least very close to it). Even today, the MkII is more than competitive with most tonearms.

cheers, jonathan carr