Audio Note arm

[Phil Y]

Hello all,
I have recently got a new arm, an Audio Note arm 2.
It replaces an Origin Live modified RB250. It sounds very good, much smoother and more detailed. Not cheap at £930 but it was years since I had spent any real money on my system (not just caps and resistors) so I felt like treating myself. It has certainly moved things up a level

[Richard]

Oh, very nice indeed Phil! The arm/deck and picture look great Did you make the plinth?

[Phil Y]

Hi Richard,
Thanks for the compliments.
Yes, I built the plinth. Nothing too clever, just laminated sheets as many, many have done before on Lenco Heaven. It sounds very good though. My previous deck was a Pink Triangle LPT which was arguably the pick of the mid price decks in its day (Manticore Mantra, Linn Axis etc). The Lenco is far, far better.

Regards, Phil.

[Greg.]

Hi Phil,

Nice looking arm and interesting that it is a correct length to fit a Lenco. I don't think there any other current arms that will do so, or if there are, they are few.

Regards,

Greg

[Richard]

Yes I was looking at how you'd fitted it Phil, is the top plate cut for clearance then the arm fixed to the plinth? Are these arms Rega geometry?

[Greg.]

Hi Richard,

I doubt they are Rega geometry. People I know who use Rega arms and most others infact, often cut off a section of the steel plinth where the arm is mounted in order to provide room for an arm with geometry different from the original Goldring arm, hense my previous post. Decca used to offer a low budget unipivot arm that was a direct replacement for the Goldring and there was another but I don't recall what that was. It'll be interesting to read Phil's response, who, incidentally is a very nice man who lent me a pair of quality microphones to help me test my reel to reel tape deck

[Phil Y]

Hi Richard and Greg,
When I built the Lenco I saw, as Greg says, that many people cut the rear corner off to fit new arms. I thought this looked a little rough and ready so I cut just enough of the top plate away to allow the Rega to drop through it and as Richard noted, mount on the plinth. This, from a distance, kept the deck looking like an integrated unit. With the fitting of the Audio Note arm I had to cut through the perimeter of the chassis to make it fit which has spoiled the effect somewhat. Yes, the arm is Rega geometry.

Regards, Phil.

[Greg.]

Ah Richard, your powers of observation are clearly better than mine. I missed seeing the cut out in Phil's first photo. My bad.

[Baggy Trousers]

Originally Posted by Greg.

Decca used to offer a low budget unipivot arm that was a direct replacement for the Goldring and there was another but I don't recall what that was.

I bought the Decca Unipivot arm in the early '70s to replace an aged Garrard Transcription fitted with Tannoy Variluctance cartridge had since 1958. The Decca's magnetic bias arrangement was quite clever but the arm, frankly, was a disaster. Its principal shortcoming was the pendulus maintenance of verticality. This meant that any significant eccentricity of the record pressing causing the arm to laterally oscillate, resulted in a polar moment of inertia creating the verticality (and therefore the stylus/groove interface) to be compromised. The viscous damping arrangement was of more use as a fly trap. It certainly was inferior to the Pickering.

It wasn't long before I replaced the arm with an SME and swapped over the V15/III. Signals went to a Verdik Ten amp. Now, there was a real quality piece of kit.

Funny how these odd references remind one of things long forgotten . . . .