Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

Hi Henry – welcome to the thread.

I will reply to your question with my actual DD and idler impressions later. Need to catch up with the holiday weekend that was anything but a holiday with two soon to be 18 years olds packed up and sent away to college. Now I wait for their phone calls. Damn... now I need to change their phone plans before I get dinged with huge bills. :^(

Slaw

I am in total agreement concerning the sonic gains you must be getting in having the armboard separate from the plinth.

Correction – replace the word plinth with platter, motor, bearing

The word plinth is one of those bad words – it has been corrupted by analog audiophiles - IMO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plinth

Plinth to me means common platform. All my TT’s have a plinth. How the tonearm, motor, and platter, bearing connect to this common platform varies. There are good designs and bad designs. I have personally found that a well executed- bad design, can out perform a badly executed - good design.

DG - need to look at that tonearm some more. living /breathing egg beater ?

Chris: I am referring to 'plinth' as does VPI when describing their tt designs, and as far as I know, most TT manufacturerers do. I have to say, the wiki link you provided seems to confirm the intent I initially meant. The plinth in my TT is 'the' platform you speak of. The armboard is connected to this 'plinth', (and becomes part of it) that supports the platter and bearing.

Chris: I think I oversimplified my response to this now, I appologize.

Dgarretson: I looked again at your "egg beater" wire loom. Very interesting and "smart" execution. Question, Do the two 'outer strands' of your egg beater design, need to be slightly longer to acheive proper "force vector"? If so, does this have an effect on your balanced cable design?

Slaw
The plinth in my TT is 'the' platform you speak of. The armboard is connected to this 'plinth', (and becomes part of it) that supports the platter and bearing.

Here is some food for thought.

I have found when comparing and listening to how the vibrations and resonances in this hobby affect the different sounds we get; that identifying “ground zero” aka the common base/plinth for all components in a turntable system (bearing/platter/spindle/motor/tonearm-cartridge) was important for me.

Slaw – in your system pic - your motor/enclosure is not attached, or even on the same base as your VPI plinth - what this means to me ...

Your VPI plinth is the plinth/base for only the platter/spindle/bearing and tonearm/cartridge.
Your wall shelf is the plinth/base for the actual motor.
Being a vibration/resonance hobby everything has an effect on your overall sound that we are getting so ….

What is the overall turntable “system” common base/plinth that the overall sound is actually based on ?

IMO

1) If all of your turntable parts were on one wall shelf your actual overall turntable system plinth would be that shelf.
2) If all of it was on two separate wall shelves then “The Wall” itself becomes the common base/plinth.
3) Still further based on your photo – if the motor is on the wall shelf and the remaining turntable parts on a floor rack - as it appears in your photo? , then both wall and floor factor in as a shared base/plinth for the turntable system, and how resonances and vibrations will affect the sound.

Thoughts ?

No more coffee for me this morning ...

Interesting Chris....as I have also found the 420STR to act much like a LOMC on my Victor DD in its susceptibility to 'feedback' when the volume is turned up?
This despite the fact that the phono stage gain is set to the low MM value which, incidentally displays no such 'feedback' with 'normal' MMs?

Do you have any thoughts on why this should be the case with the 420STR?

From the nude thread

Perhaps the fact that the 420STR is like a giant antenna (according to Chris and the Professor Timeltel).

Hi Henry – I gave this some more thought. I prefer to label the 420str as a “Nude” cartridge – I thought u would like this name? The 420str has very little “clothing” so why not call it nude. Its not damped and protected to the nine’s like other cartridges so it needs an arm that can pass thru or eliminate resonances really well. If you have any issues with your turntable setup, it will tell you like no other cartridge so far for me. This can be good or bad depending on your perspective.

On a belt or thread drive TT where there is excellent motor isolation, this cartridge has had no issues for me whatsoever. It did however require me to lock things down better on the idler and dd tables, thus its value to me for more than just the sound, but as a test cartridge. I believe that most of the favorable impressions of the 420str here, were with belt / thread drive users ?
Is this not so ?

I look forward to your impressions of it Henry - on your Belt drive Raven when u get your phono stage up and running.

As an update the 420str arrived safely and is with BT.

Slaw – I found a Shawn Colvin - Steady On - LP. :^)