Question on FR 66s

Dear Nandric, you could be right regarding wood choice. When I ordered Reed, there was really no way to tell which arm wand would be ideal. Actually, I wanted to order Pernambucco as well based on Reed's graph. However, I did talk to Reed before hand about which arm wand to order and I specifically mentioned that I was planning on using Koetsu with Reed. Reed suggested that I go with Cocobolo which has similar effective mass as Pernambucco. Reed also suggested my local dealer to use Cocobolo with Miyajima line of cartridge that they also carry. Cocobolo wand sounds great with Miyajima so I don't think it is the low compliance cartridge issue. It also sounds wonderful with my Lyra, XV-1s and Air Tight in my system but just not Koetsu. It was not bad but I felt the sound was not on the same level as other cartridges that I have. Koetsu on FR was also in its own different league than Reed/Koetsu. Just my own observation in my own system, of course.
As I am very happy with Reed with other cartridges, that was why I said that it was most likely compatibility/synergy issue more than anything else. May be another wood type would work better but I don't have a resource to try all. It would be fun if Reed has interchangeable armwand as I certainly would not mind experimenting that way.
After I sold my Graham, I was considering either Reed 3P or Thales Simplicity and was planning to audition both a bit later on this year but FR 66s kind of fall in my lap unexpectedly so I will leave my analogue front end as is for now.

Syntax, I also agree that in case of phono, silver does seems to make the best sense due to very low signal level. Most cables that I have are silver, using silver headshell lead etc. I was just wondering about copper when I heard someone mentioned that Lyra recommended copper wire. I suppose it is possible as copper wire will have different sound characteristic than silver. ZYX also offers cartridges with different wiring inside and I thought that some people actually prefer copper wire version over silver and gold. Never heard them myself though.

For some reason, copper DOES have a slightly different tonal balance vs silver, comparing solid core strands of equal gauge, used as home-made interconnects. However, I am not convinced that the sonic difference has much to do with the slightly superior conduction properties of silver vs copper. But then again, I have no hard data either way.

Syntax, does your response indicate that you use DIN to RCA phono cables, with your FR tonearms? I thought you guys had hard-wired your FR tonearms, so to have an uninterrupted run of wire from the headshell plug to the phono stage. That's what I would like to do, but I am fearful of the risk to the bearing, if I were to do the job myself.

Dear Lew, Before you try to do this job yourself you shoulf first look at: www.thomas-schlick.com -fr 64. There you can see the complexity involved. Schlick deed this job himself but he is, you know, a tonearm designer. The only thing I needed to do according to Dertonarm was to put the arm in the son like the watchmaker use to do with
whatches. As you know some Greek philospher wanted also some 'son-light' and asked Alexander: 'get a little bit out of the son'.

Regards,

I thought you guys had hard-wired your FR tonearms, so to have an uninterrupted run of wire from the headshell plug to the phono stage

I use them stock and I also know nobody who modified them to run them direct.
Well, in a way it is the same idea we find in Graham Arm discussions, more pins, more contacts, more resistance to direct wired Arms. But the Graham Arm is still much better than all other current designs (some won't agree but there is a difference between "I like something" or "better"), so the secret of superior sound is somewhere else. But where?
A straight piece of Arm wood with Valhalla cable and 2 RCA plugs does not help much in comparison with other Arms.
So I think, other Design ideas have MUCH more influence to superior sound. The 64s for example has some very interesting internal solutions and when someone would build it again with identical specs and materials, it would be easily above $14k.
The 64s was a very expensive Arm when it became available. I think, it was among the top 5% from pricing.
The 66s was a different Galaxy, super expensive, very, very rare. 64s was from production numbers probably factor 10 or more.