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Should I keep my Well tempered tonearm?

I have had this arm for years. I am currently in the middle of getting an oracle Delphi MKIII. My alexandria it was on has had it, and its not logical to repair what needs replacement.

I have always had mistracking issues with this tonearm and whatever cartridge. I just sold a Grado Sonata, which may have been a mistake. I have tried multiple cartridges (read 4 different known good units) and never seem to get it right.

I ordered the protractor from stanalog because I am concerned that its incorrectly set overhang causing mistracking. When I say mistracking I mean sibalence.

I have played with every possible setting and never had it setup to my satisfaction.

Honestly, I am sick of screwing around with this arm. I am about ready to get rid of it and get something different.

The manual isn't all that great as far as installation instructions either. It lists that you mount the cart and set overhang by twisting the arm mounting until the stylus lines up with the overhang circle. This makes no sense to set overhang with an arbitrary cartridge mounting arrangement.

Sorry if this seems like a rant, but I am very frustrated and annoyed with this arm. I just want to listen to good sounding clean music. Not dirty sibalence.

Thanks guys, your input would be appreciated. I would likely have to buy an arm that is priced close to what the WTT is worth used because I won't have a ton of money left over.

Evan

BTW, I put a 10x5 on a thorens turntable and could listen to that all day compared to my setup.
240z4u
240z4u OP
30 posts
 
Tobias, your welcome.

David. Thank you for your thoughts. Ill check to make sure the screws are perpendicular to the arm tube first. Then ill do the rest of that good stuff. I am also going to remeasure my mounting point from the spindle to the arm mounting stud to make sure that is dead on.

Glad you tried the 97, so I know thats not the issue. I have no idea if i am overloading inputs. Worst case, I can plug everything into my marantz 2226b to make sure thats not it. I have about 50db of gain.

The rest of my system sounds great, so thats not the issue.

Just for the record, here is what the rest of the food chain looks like.

PSE studio SL preamp
Welborne compleat phono stage
Tweaked/rebuilt dynaco MKIIIs.
Mordaunt short performance 860s.
Audioquest quartz interconnects on the TT stuff.
Arm rewired with cardas cryoed wire.
Monster biwire speaker cables.

I am sure this won't really help diagnosis but I am also sure someone will be curious enough to ask!

Thanks, ill be in touch after I play a bit tonight. I really need to get overhang just right too, which I cannot do without the dang protractor that I ordered last night.

Thanks guys! - Evan
240z4u OP
30 posts
 
Sorry forgot to mention I have had about 5 different carts on this arm as well, so I am somewhat sure thats not the problemo.

Evan
viridian's avatar
viridian
4,184 posts
 
For what it's worth, I used a Well Tempered Arm, for a couple of years, on a suspended Sonographe SG-3, with a Koetsu Black cartridge, and had great sound and no issues at all as far as ergonomics or sound quality was concerned. BTW, I think that Schipo is incorrect, the arm was not designed for their unsuspended turntables, in fact, the arm came first, and the turntables were designed for the arm. Kind of puts that one to bed.
240z4u OP
30 posts
 
Thanks for the reassurance that I am not barking up the wrong tree with this on a suspended table!

Evan
schipo
1,267 posts
 
Viridian, if the wtt arm works well on your Sonographe SG-3
then I stand corrected. I am just going by what the designer Firebaugh said,that the arm was best with a non suspension table design. I relize that there are exceptions to every rule. And I like to say hello to Armstrod. I remmember when he came to pick up the table a real gentlemen.
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