Adding a tonearm to your lathe. 12 inches (305 mm) needed?

[Steve E.]

Len Horowitz told me that I should add a tonearm to my Presto 6N that will allow me to monitor cuts while I am making them. The currently mounted 12 inch tonearm (made by the previous owner out of copper pipe) seems to work pretty well, but it does NOT allow monitoring while the record is being cut, because it would bump into the cutting system. Also, Len said I really need a decent professional tonearm, none of this homemade stuff.

Because this is a 16" turntable, I am pretty sure I need a 12" (305mm) arm on this baby. It looks like I may be able to cheat as far down as 11" or even 10.5," if i can figure out a way to mount the tonearm next to the exact middle of the left side of the machine. Somehow.

SO....I just spent an entire evening researching long tonearms.

The problem is, 12" tonearms seem to go for incredible amounts of money. I plugged over 20 models into ebay and google, and the starting price was typically around $1500. ARGGGG.

It has been recommended that I get an SME or an Audio Technica. SMEs are probably slightly less pricey than many others, but they still start at $1200 up, used. The SME 3012 in its various incarnations is 12" long.

The Audio Technica AT 1501 and ATP 16T are their longest tonearms, and they have an effective length of 11". They seem to be quite rare.

The Audio Technica AT 1503 and ATP 12T seem to be very similar. The DO show up on Ebay. They have an effective length of 10.2 inches, so I think they are probably too short, anyway.


This seems like an interesting alternative. Price is VERY LOW:
http://tonearmaudio.com/_wsn/page3.html
[updated links 5/5/2014:
http://tonearmaudio.com/
http://tonearmaudio.com/id2.html ]


Suspiciously low. Any thoughts, anybody?

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For further research:

This site was astonishingly helpful:

http://www.vinylengine.com/tonearm_database.php?

I plugged in "effective length" values starting at 320mm and working downwards. SME and Thorens also have tonearms at bizarrely exact lengths with decimals, so it's important to do searches by name, too.

This chat seems to be populated entirely by audiophiles who have anywhere from $1500 to $4000 upwards to spend on their tonearms:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1152600049&openfrom&1&4

Nonetheless, gave me a place to start.

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These brands made at least one very long tonearm:

Bang and Olufsen (12.6")
Ortofon (12.6")
Stax (12.28")
EMT (12.17")
SAEC (12")
Pro-Ject(12")
General Electric (12")
Fidelity Research (their FR 66 seems well regarded)
Rek-o-kut (their "Micropoise S260" seems to be around 11.5")
Micro Seiki (I read of a 16" tonearm somewhere.....!)
Grace
DaVinci


and recently, VPI....
But there are even more, too. I need sleep.

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Am I making too much out of the long tonearm issue? What do you-all do?

thanks!

[studiorp]

For me you can use a simple but good Lenco 75 tonearm.
In 70 years it was considered a transcription arm with the famous Lenco 75 turntable.

[cd4cutter]

Yes, Steve, you're making too much out of this tonearm bizness. First of all, unless you are cutting soft lacquers with professional grade cutters like Neumann or Ortofon, the tonearm doesn't need to be cutting edge quality. Playback of lacquer cuts without inflicting too much damage to the lacquer requires very low tracking force which requires both a good tonearm and a top line cartridge that can track in the 1.25 gram range. But if you're going to be doing less than professional quality cutting, worrying about having a super duper tonearm is an exercise in futility. So your existing homemade one is probably just fine. Also, you do NOT want to play any lacquer that will later be used for electroforming into metal parts to be used in pressing records. Even ONE play with the best cartridge and stylus will inflict some damage on a lacquer. So the use of a tonearm while you are cutting is only recommended when you are adjusting your system with test cutting. Personally, I never used a tonearm on my cutting lathe. I always made a series of test cuts, then transferred the lacquer to a proper listening and measuring system in another room. After you get your system adjusted, then you just cut without monitoring the cut with a playback tonearm.

Yes, typical high grade long tonearms are expensive mostly because few of them were ever sold and they are now scarce and so command a high price. The reason so few were sold is that the only real purpose for the 12 inch arms was for playing 16 inch lacquers and transcription records. Only professional users bought them. The exact length of the arm is irrelevant, so long as you have it mounted correctly - don't worry about the difference between an 11.5 and a 12.2 inch specification. This only matters if you are refitting a new arm into an existing mounting position. If you can fit a more conventional 9 inch arm to your turntable and you aren't going to be cutting 16 inch masters, then do that. I used to play 14 inch lacquers (the size that's used for mastering 12 inch pressed records) quite easily with a conventional SME 3009 mounted on a conventional Thorens TD-125 turntable. If you still want a long arm, then go for whatever you can find. Again, the quality doesn't have to be top notch if you aren't cutting pro-grade quality.

A cheap alternative in a good quality long arm that many people don't know about is the Garrard TPA10 which was made in the late 1950s - most of them are wired for mono. The wiring is easily changed if you want to wire it for stereo. This arm was actually adjustable in length from around 9 to just less than 12 inches. Also, the headshell was adjustable in angle to allow various lateral tracking angles to be obtained. Nobody knows what these are, and you can usually find them on eBay for less than $50. Do not confuse this model with the TPA12 which was shorter and was NOT adjustable. The only disadvantage to the TPA10 is that the headshell is not the common plug-in style, so it's not convenient to swap cartridges in it. The TPA10 did not carry its model number anywhere on it, so many sellers don't know what they have. You have to identify it by its appearance:



Have fun and don't worry about it Size doesn't always matter

[cuttercollector]

Wood has been used before with good results by Grado and Weathers in the past. It may have some desirable resonance damping properties.
The one you sent the link to may be an excelent hobbyist small manufacturer with a great undervalued product, or it might be a piece of junk. Just depends on how carefully engineered and manufactured it is.
It is an attractive alternative and nothing wrong with the concept.
Just make sure you mount it (or any arm) in the right place using some sort of alignment device so the geometry is correct and it clears the biggest size you want to play. If the existing arm can be set up correctly and made to work, I would just use that. Perhaps add anti-skate if you want to use a better, lighter tracking cartridge. This can sometimes easilly be added with a small weight and some thin flexible cord or line. Look at pictures of arms with this type of system and you will see how it works.
The key again is setup. I have a record that I can look at distortion with a lissajous pattern on a dual trace scope and adjust all parameters including tracking force, anti-skate, height (VTA), overhang etc. for best results.

[Steve E.]

Thanks for all the feedback! much appreciated!

(and any more, also welcomed.)

[cuttercollector]

Well, I did end up ordering a wooden arm from the guy. Very helpful emails and it came right away. It has directions that make sense, went together in about a minute and seems like it will do the job. It is a home-made thing but really looks as if it should work quite well. It has a pretty large adjustment range for height, and all of the adjustments are there and explained. The longer arm does not come with anti-skate but he has a weight and string type available on the shorter arm. I doubt if it would be hard to add to the longer one I got. So if you don't feel like making an arm for a 16" table yourself or buying a real expensive one, this seems more than serviceable.

[Steve E.]

Excellent! I am intrigued. Let me know how it sounds once you have used it a bit.

[Steve E.]

Cuttercollector, how are you feeling about that wooden tonearm?

http://tonearmaudio.com/id3.html

[Steve E.]

I'm revisiting this tonearm thread.

Am I missing something here?

http://tonearmaudio.com/id4.html


12" Arm

Construction: Solid cherry & brass.

Mass: 19 grams

Effective Length: 12" (305mm)

Overall Length: 16 1/8" (405mm)

Spindle to Pivot-Point: 11 1/4" (286mm)

Overhang: 3/4" (19mm)

Carteidge Weights: 5 to 10 grams. A heavier counterweight will be provided for heavier cartridges.

NOTE: Azimuth is set before shipping.

I have styli that are supposed to track at .75 to 1.5 grams, and others at 5 to 7 grams. Isn't this very heavy? and I tend to think that tonearms should be more parallel than what I see here.

But I don't want to diss this product out of my own ignorance! I love this guy's humility and I hope it is a great product.

[Steve E.]

And....It gets uniformly positive reviews:

http://www.audioasylum.com/reviews/Tone-Arms/Tonearm-Audio/Cherry-12/vinyl/106/1061121.html


And....here are photos of one fully installed. Does not look like the same steep angle:

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=126089.0

[studiorp]

And about the geometry of tonearm ?
I remember that there was a angle to respect before to install .