Question on FR 66s

Raul, When you have calmed down sufficiently, I would like to know what you think about my experience that suggests best sound is achieved when the cartridge is aligned according to the geometry for which the tonearm was designed. That means, for the vintage Japanese tonearms like my Dynavector DV505 (and in theory like the FR tonearms), the best sounding geometry is Stevenson. This is my personal observation with only the one tonearm (DV505) and two different cartridges. And it is only my opinion based on listening, only. I am NOT saying that Stevenson gives the lowest overall mathematically predicted "distortion". I am only reporting my experience, and I attributed the finding to the fact that with the DV505 one has to twist the cartridge in the headshell, in order to use anything but Stevenson. There is reason to believe that this could introduce a new source of distortion that over-rides tonearm geometry. I wrote about this on VE.

Dear Thuchan: Way before you bought the 8000 I posted my opinions on those SAEC tonearms along the 506 I own ( you can see the 8000 picture in my system. ) and that was way before no one here in this forum speaks about SAEC tonearms. I used those SAEC tonearms for years ( they came after I sold the 66. ).

SAEC had a very high quality builded designs and a beauty of tonearms in the hands but through all those years and comparing against other vintage tonearms as the MS 282 or the Audiocraft or Satin I learned about its performance " faults ". The double knife bearing is more resonant than other pivot bearing types as gymbal or jewel and puts additional distortions/feedback that you can hear, other " problem " in the 8000 is that way resonant ceramic headshell and of course its long effective mass.

Its very dificult that you can be aware of significant differences between the SAEC tonearms and other top tonearms if your system has not the resolution need it to be aware of it.

Now, that's part of my opinion that where I acumulate several experiences with different cartridges over several years not over 3 or 4 years and against several tonearms in the same set up.

Like you when I discovered the SAEC ones I was really impressed, you can't be in other way. Yes, the 8000 is one of your " new " toys when for me is a very old toy. Sooner or latter, as me, that toy will be out of your system for good reasons: when you learned about and be less impressed as I one time was.

If you want to talk about SUTs you can start a thread or go to the MM/MI thread. Very fast, I bought two WE transformers along two Denon, two Entré, one Audiocraft and one Sony SUTs. All that in one month to search again about the SUTs performance an its influence on signal degradation against non-SUT system. I modified all, you can read in the MM/MI thread.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

Dear Lewm: I owned the DV-505 and its a design that I respect a lot becaus e is unique, good for Dynavector.

You are right almost all japanese tonearms came with set up specs based on Stevenson.

When I try to mount my first cartridge on it I don't put to much attention to that fact and mounted according with the protractor at hand and I have trouble because the offset angle then I was aware of Stevenson and that's how I use it for some time but I changed to Löfgren B twisting the cartridge as you said ( I don't use it the Dynavector headshell and I can't remember wich ones I used because was years ago. ) and with the XV-1 mounted in that way I achieve better results that with the Stevenson alignment and that's the way I used. Maybe I could be wrong but that passed so many years that's dificult to be sure about. Yes, that tonearm conforms as no other tonearm with Stevenson.
In all audio alternatives exist trade-offs and perhaps those trade-offs " sounds " better for me. I don't mounted MM/MI cartridges down there but only LOMC. Unfortunatelly I don't have any more to test it again.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

Btw, interesting: could you link your VE post to my email?. You know I'm willing to learn always.

Thank you.

R.

Dear Raul, I have a few protractors mainly because I am still trying to find one that I really like. Personally, I like Mint protractor the best as far as ease of use, mirror surface and all. It is a lot easier to use for cartridges like Koetsu, Air Tight and Kiseki. However, now that I have 4 arms and most likely there will be more in the future, I don't want to keep buying new Mint protractor every time so I start looking around for universal protractor. I think Feickert is great and it has 3 geometries to choose but its finish make it harder for me to use on the 3 cartridges mentioned above. Clearaudio is fine but it has only one geometry with 4 IEC options. I figure since I spend all these moneys on cartridges and arms, why not experiment a bit more with various protractors if it may make a big enough difference in setting the arm/cartrige properly.
I am thinking of trying SMARTracker just because it seems that on the usability side, it is more well thought out that other protractors and seemed to be one that was really designed by end-user for user. It may not be more accurate than Feickert but at the very least, it would be more user friendly, I would guess.