Second arm wand and cartridge - wacky?

I was listening to Poulenc's Organ Concerto on Proprius (ca 1980) this morning and was thrilled. The sound is so addictive - much more than a Logan Martini (tm) - that I started entertaining the idea of buying a Dynavector XV-1s or 1t with a second VPI arm wand so I can easily interchange with the current XX-2 cartridge. The idea would be to use the XV-1s on the most worthy recordings and the XX-2 on the rest.

Wacky?

I say, "Why not?".

Excellent idea...

Depending on your record buying habits, seeing you are a classical lover, you may even want a third wand with a Mono cartridge. The mono LP's sound much better with even a modestly priced mono cartridge than a great stereo cartridge.

The bigger your record collection the more handy a few different analog setups sound. If only they were all mastered the same....

Not Wacky, that's the way I've rolled for over 20 years!...

spectral said:

I was listening to Poulenc's Organ Concerto on Proprius (ca 1980) this morning and was thrilled. The sound is so addictive - much more than a Logan Martini (tm) - that I started entertaining the idea of buying a Dynavector XV-1s or 1t with a second VPI arm wand so I can easily interchange with the current XX-2 cartridge. The idea would be to use the XV-1s on the most worthy recordings and the XX-2 on the rest.

Wacky?

Click to expand...

I use a vintage EPA-500 tonearm system with 4 interchangeable fully balanced tapered titanium nitride wands. Since each wand is a complete tonearm with counterweight assembly, I am able to swap pre-mounted cartridges from one record to the next in a matter of seconds. Just slide the arm in, lock it down, and dial in the pre-determined height for VTA.

Over the years, I've used Grado's, Decca's. Benz's, ADC's, Panasonics, Accuphase's, etc. and literally listened to any one I choose for whatever record or music I am playing.

Today, my stable includes 3 Nakatsuka designs, the Accuphase AC3 and AC2, ADC TRX3, as well as the Zu Audio Denon 103D-Prime, and a modified Panasonic strain guage. Cartridges ranging in mass from 3 grams to 19 grams!

Anyway, go for it! It'll take you a little more swapping time (that is unless by dumb luck the two Dynavectors are exactly the same mass!), since you have to balance the wands after you swap, but if you mark the VTA sweet spot for each, you should still be able to swap fairly quickly.

Cheers,
Ray

Pictures...

I had to dismount my strain guage cartridge today anyway, so I snapped some family portraits :drool:

As you can see, the wand is fully intact with the counterweight, so on-the-fly swapping is a cinch.

The Omega-S set-up shot I include just for fun

raygunn said:

Anyway, go for it! It'll take you a little more swapping time (that is unless by dumb luck the two Dynavectors are exactly the same mass!), since you have to balance the wands after you swap, but if you mark the VTA sweet spot for each, you should still be able to swap fairly quickly.

Click to expand...

He may have to adjust VTA (which is a cinch on the VPI arms even with the record playing), but he shouldn't have to balance anything really Ray. The counterweight is secured to the individual arm wands on all of the VPI arms. I believe on all of the newer ones especially with the dropped counterweight there is a set screw to keep it in place once balanced.

I think it's a great idea Spectral. Someday when I have a little bit of extra cash laying about I'd like to do the same thing.

Tim,
I didn't realize that. I thought the VPI wands separated ahead of the unipivot, like the Graham.

Since the VPI's are also pre-balanced, then indeed the swapping effort is minimal as long as VTA is easily adjusted or pre-marked. On the EPA-500 you can dial it in while the record is playing. The I just keep a written chart handy with the setting in millimeters where each cartridge needs to be.

This is really the cool aspect about vinyl. Since cartridges are such a personal choice due to their inherent sonic signatures, being able to "fit" a cartridge to a record or type of music or even mono vs. stereo is fun!

By the way, no real progress on my turntable yet. Well, at least nothing beyond CNC drawings. After two years, I'm hoping I can get back to it this summer.

Ray, I used to have the Technics EPA-500 arm also. One of the best arms I've ever owned. I sold it attached to a really nice Luxman PD-300 vacuum table with outboard pump...man do I wish I had that combo back!

Like they say, hindsight IS 20/20

A few years ago, I shelved it for a 12" Gold Moerch DP-6...

and I quickly realized that I had made a mistake.

The only flaw the EPA-500 system ever had was the wiring. I guess to facilitate production, the wiring had a series of 4 internal breaking points and a small circuit board. I corrected this by having Garth Phillippe (RIP) of Incognito in Germany, custom wire the whole system with continuous flying leads, wands and base unit. He used the same wiring as for the Schroeder tonearms (he did all of Frank Schroeder's wiring work). The results far exceeded my expectations.

This thing is not only staying put in my system, but I have a spare EPA-500 base unit for when I complete construction of my two-armed turntable.

Here's what I was talking about in my earlier post. The unipivot is actually a needle bearing that projects up just below the centerline of the arm, but the entire arm rests on top of that bearing. Everything from the azimuth adjustment ring up pulls away if you want to remove the arm, and you can see the set screw I was talking about on the dropped counterweight. Simply disconnect the arm wiring with the DIN connector, pop on a new arm and plug the new connector back in. You can also see the VTA adjustment tower over to the left - very easy to adjust VTA on the fly and as you can see, very easy to calibrate with the scale engraved into the pieces.

Ah, I see. That's a nice arrangement...

As you can already tell, I don't know a whole lot about the VPI tonearm since I am not a huge fan of unipivots (just personal choice). The floppiness gives me the heebee geebees, :eek1:

However, I have heard the tonearm enough to know that it's quite good when mated with the right cartridge.

The EPA-500 base is also engraved with millimeter increment markings to facilitate a consistent and repeatable VTA setting. The entire base is on a cam that raises and lowers it as you turn the black outer ring.

I guess the only difference between the two systems then, in terms of flexibility, is the selection of wands of different mass and resonance frequency;(which ultimately, is a bit of overkill if you're not changing out a wide variety of cartridge types); that is unless VPI also has a selection of wands with different masses and "q" as well?

raygunn said:

This is really the cool aspect about vinyl. Since cartridges are such a personal choice due to their inherent sonic signatures, being able to "fit" a cartridge to a record or type of music or even mono vs. stereo is fun!

Click to expand...

Excellent point, and having an extra cart or two really makes it easier to enjoy a wider range of vinyl, as they are all mastered differently!

Thanks Jeff. Also, as you are probably already aware,

the latest think in phono amps actually makes this even easier by providing multiple independent tonearm inputs as well as a full complement of equalization standards, and multitudes of selections of impedance and capacitance settings.

Who would have thought that in the year 2010 we would even be having these sorts of breakthroughs in the analog world.

..better late than never, I suppose.

Nice discussion... and how timely. Today I spent over 4 hours listening and realizing that every damn LP I played needs its own bass fine tuning; and the way I achieve this is by this bass attenuation box I have built and use on the woofers - some LPs need more, others less; it's not scientific, but it helps. In the end, I can't be doing this all the time, but the suggestion for multiple arms and cartridges to match LPs and music isn't off the wall to me anymore (not that I will do it, but it really has merit).

This attenuation box was intentionally built using a pair of 4 and 6 ohm/50W resistors, to be able to select between 2.4, 4 and 6 settings by wiring them appropriately. In the end, this has proven very handy, and I may even add another 2 ohm one for even more possibilities...

Anyway, on another note, I've been experimenting with this VPI outer ring clamp I got the other day. Not sure what it does for me right now, other than flatten the record and avoid some rumble in the beginning of the record... Anyone have any thoughts on it???

MiTT said:

you can see the set screw I was talking about on the dropped counterweight.

Click to expand...

I had a dropped counterweight on my Mayware Formula 4, and could never get it right - it wobbled all over the place. My VPI without the dropped counterweight seems a lot more stable.

I remember the Mayware Formula 4...

You can't really compare it to the VPI.

As I recall, the Mayware had the build quality of a High School Freshman's first Metal Shop project!

:ROFL: