Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners



Where are you? What mods have you done ?

I have been using these ET2's for over 9 years now.
I am still figuring them out and learning from them. They can be modified in so many ways. Bruce Thigpen laid down the GENIUS behind this tonearm over 20 years ago. Some of you have owned them for over 20 years !

Tell us your secrets.

New owners – what questions do you have ?

We may even be able to coax Bruce to post here. :^)

There are so many modifications that can be done.

Dressing of the wire with this arm is critical to get optimum sonics along with proper counterweight setup.

Let me start it off.

Please tell us what you have found to be the best wire for the ET-2 tonearm ? One that is pliable/doesn’t crink or curl. Whats the best way of dressing it so it doesn’t impact the arm. Through the spindle - Over the manifold - Below manifold ? What have you come up with ?
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Dover,

When you mentioned removing the heat shrink from the arm tube, which arm tube were you talking about? My aluminum tube does not have any on it, but I also have what I think is the heavy magnesium tube (it's definitely not the aluminum or carbon fiber tube, and I'm not sure if they ever made a lightweight magnesium tube). When I got it, it had heat shrink on it, but I did not know if it was factory installed or not. It was a little damaged, so I took it completely off.

What benefit did you see by removing the heat shrink? What did the metal beneath the heat shrink look like? Mine is a dull, gray color with a pretty rough surface finish, close to what 100 or 80 grit sandpaper would give.

Here's a photo and a diagram of the magnesium arm wand.

http://www.eminent-tech.com/25%20magnesium%20arm%20wand.html

http://www.eminent-tech.com/magarmtube.html

Also, how did you remove the teflon "filler" in the headshell? I assume your talking about the white material inside the arm tube where it's squished together where the cartridge mounts. What did you do, buy a sheet of carbon fiber and cut and file it until it fit in the slot? What benefit did you see from doing this?

Thanks a lot.
Ketchup, I used the ET2 before the magnesium arm wand came out. The arm was smooth and gumetal grey under the shrinkwrap. !st I removed the heatshrink, more agile sound, then I removed the foam inside the arm tube - lighter sound but much more transparent.
For the cartridge mount I carefully prised open the end of the arm, enough to get long nosed pliers onto the soft insert and pulled it out. Then I got a thin piece of carbin fibre, cut to size, then inserted it into arm with araldite and clamped the headshell until dry.
I never compared this to the magnesium arm.
Cheers
I have a very early ET2, so early in fact it came with an ET1 manual. Why would I mention this? Because there is a very interesting technique Bruce describes using a second tone arm and cartridge to measure arm resonance. Have any of you folks heard of this, especially those who have removed the damping materials?
Slaw, apologies. In did not mean to come across as heavy handed. My comment was simply a statement of what I heard IN MY SYSTEM; not a suggestion that you should do the same.

Regards.