Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

@ct517 the design difference has for shure not escaped me - "interesting differences" indeed!
But in regard of horizontal mass, the degrees of freedom of the air bearing (not the details of bearing tolerance and pressure) and its placement relative to the subchassis and platter, they are very similar. That's the point. And this is relevant regarding suboptimal drive pairings.

It's no accident that VPI and many VPI users have converted their originally suspended chassis towards rigid or semi-rigid subchassis coupling, similar to many of the newer (post 2000?) turntable designs.
This design change seems to be of sonical advantage (in general) already for conventional arms – my experience ist that this is even more true with air bearing arms.Interestingly, if one considers the Trans-Fi design or the Opus 3 Cantus and simlar "short arms", they reduce this sensitivity to rotational modes of a subchassis, because the rotational force on the subchassis pulls more along the arm instead of lateral. 

@slaw @ct0517 
Yes, the solid plinths are outrageous.  Found a source in Austria that is about half what the US sources get.  It will be about a month to get the plinth then it's off to STS turntables in Nashville for refurb.

I decided on an Ortofon TA 110 arm.  Please don't excommunicate me.  I'm keeping my ET II.  If nothing else I can stare at my Garrard with Ortofon while I listen to my VPI with ET II.

@frogman 
No competition from me on the next ET II on EBay.......at least for a while.

Cheers,
Harry

If nothing else I can stare at my Garrard with Ortofon while I listen to my VPI with ET II.

If me Harry, I would first put your ET II on the Garrard using the quick install technique I described; then you can hear for yourself what the Garrard (the table itself) brings to the table. Apples to Apples.

Anyway, that is what I did with my Jean Nantais Lenco. It actually came with the Dynavector tonearm. Jean Nantais’ preferred tonearm. An impressive, freaky looking thing that Dyna tonearm. He was surprised when I sent him pics of the table with the ET 2.5 on it. hah hah

So my JN Lenco table is just sitting there, can be stared at as you say. It doesn’t bother me, not using it, because unlike digital DAC’s and CD players, it holds its value.....these days better than my oil stocks !
So I haven’t sold it off yet. Record players are so in vogue.

IMO - What you are doing Harry is a healthy audiophile exercise. I was happy enough with my at the time TNT TT, but My JN Lenco Idler table upped the game in a couple areas and forced me to make improvements to the modded TNT (adding thread), and also my SP10 DD setup (better isolation). So for a time the JN lenco, with the 2nd ETII on it, became a reference point for me. It’s been quite a number of years now . The JN table can be sent to him in Ottawa to have the latest updates made to it, but the delta that exists with the Verdier is just too large, for me, so I have not bothered doing it.

@ct0517 
Thanks for the encouragement Chris.
"What you are doing Harry is a healthy audiophile exercise."

Healthy!?  Healthy!?  Sure not healthy for my wallet :).  But, damn, it's fun.  I'm very anxious to get the plinth and have the TT refurbed and mounted.

Of course for a guy with a Verdier cost is no object.  Tee Hee.
Cheers,
Harry

Well no big surprise that I have a alert on ET2 on ebay ;)))))))
but my problem is that I only need the arm (second ))))
no pump 
by the way I have a  wise air pump left over more or less new 

Moved the air pump up in the loft with tank and 10 m hose down 
runs it at 14 psi and the wise pump not able to do that job. so now I use a big ugly and noisy air brush pump. Cant hear it and air stream very stable The long hose help a lot i think. 

But thing the micro seiki need to come up first.so all safe for some time ;-)
All part for the test rig ordered. 
planing to start disassemble and CLEAN the arm next week. 

Any in here with the high mass arm ?? 
any improvement on 12-10 comp cartridges?? 

I ended up using all 40g leads on a 10g cartridges and with 2.5 g tracking
the lead mounted on the outside of the I-beam and the rood pointing inwards the I end up mid on the I-beam scale