MG1 air- bearing tone-arm

Suggest you read Arthur Salvatore's text-- particularly regarding MG-1 bearing noise-- at

http://www.high-endaudio.com/RC-Tonearm.html

Any air pulsing will adversely affect stylus. While this arm is cheap, the recommended pump is not. Then check out Trans-Fi Terminator-- more expensive but works fine with a $75 aquarium pump and DIY flow tank. Finally, on a lightly sprung table like Oracle the leveling may change as the arm travels down the manifold.

Search the archives, there were a few posts by users a couple of years back. Try sending those members and email.

I have one on my Bix and I really enjoy. It doesn't seem as finicky as people often describe linear trackers in general.

There is one 1/2" bolt that secures it any armboard, and then it has 3 spike which you can adjust with an Allen wrench from the top. At first this did not seem very secure, but the base is very adjustable as such and very secure to the armboard. You can make fine adjustment very easily (as opposed to my JS Stancampiano linear).

I have a new table on the way and I should blog about setting up the MG1.

It has a free liquid damping trough available to a buyer after one year for free. The Alita pump is somewhat loud, but I put it in a wood box, and it sits in a cabinet on a piece of foam; can't hear it and though it heats up, it doesn't go Chernobyl.

Hi

I've used MG-1 with excellent results on my Oracle Premiere Mk IV. Takes a while to set it up, and then you have to check it quite often for proper leveling (you need a small level and a Hex wrench to adjust the screws in the base of arm), so arm-tube does not have a tendency to slide in or out on the air bearing tube (sort of equivalent to anti-skate on pivoted arms). Set-up is much easier on non-suspended tables for sure, but I had to do with what I got :-) It is also a bit tricky to try position the air tube and connectors in a way that doesn't affect Oracle's suspension. I also used the table with suspension defeated by letting sub-platter rest on heavy lucite pucks. But then you might as well get a non-suspended table :-)

Oracle belts are available from www.turntablebasics.com for a measly $10 - $15. I compared them to original Oracle ones, and they seems to be identical.

Thanks for the info, Mark.