Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

Hi Harry

Looking at the arm it seemed about 10mm longer than the average Grace, Acos, etc., length of 222mm so I guessed it was going to be about 232mm (plus or minus a couple of millimetres). Have you measured the spindle to pivot distance since you adjusted the arm board? It looks like you have about a 10mm gap there.

Paul

Hi Paul,

I checked my measurements again and got the same 223 mm pivot to spindle distance. The arm has a length of approximately 250 mm from the pivot to the front centre of the headshell. The tip of the stylus is about 8 mm back from the front of the headshell which gives me about 18 mm overhang. I had no instructions with the arm so I just used the template to try to get a good fit. I assume that the same overhang can be obtained by changing both the stylus position and the pivot to spindle distance. So far the set up sounds pretty good.

Harry

Hi Harry, thanks for re-measuring. I'm looking forward to getting mine going once I've done a bit of horizontal bearing refurbishment.

Paul

Hi Mario, you don't know the half of it: I also have a Rek-o-Kut Rondine Jr., and it too has a metal motor spindle and smaller wheel!! The Idler Gods certainly smile upon me, beginning in that fleamarket in Helsinki :-). Other than "Rondine" written in cursive Art Deco script, I have seen nothing else written on these, I'll look next time I go to the workshop, which is out in the country.

Congratulations Stefanl, nice catch/price, now you become a SERIOUS Lencoer!!

Over here I had not had time to try my Rega RB-300 seriously ever since I built my own Giant Lenco (Mr. Red), and so I set it up this past weekend. My God the MUSICALITY!! I was astounded!! This against a context of a parade of high-end tonearms running through my system, all of which have been stellar in various ways. But this shows me those vintage tonearms I was playing with before really did have some sort of edge in the musicality sweepstakes over modern high-end tonearms, as the Rega, though always stellar, did not match the others for overall musicality. But the first thing which struck me when I mounted it (rewired with my fave Cardas/Music Boy recipe), with the Ortofon Jubilee, on Mr. Red, was the BIG increase in musicality - smoothness, liquidity, wholeness/gestalt, PRaT, flow - ahhhhh, I'm back home again.

Then I mounted the Denon DL-103"E" to the Rega and the music jumped up again in intensity, and for the first time via the Klipsch, the Kundalini Effect!! A miracle hallelujah!! I also learned something about synergies, as while with my other speakers the Denon definitely sounded better via my active step-up, via the Klipsch the Kundalini Effect (ultra-intense PRaT) only manifested itself when I switched the Denon to the Fidelity Research transformer I have.

Now, the RS Labs certainly extracts more from the Denon in terms of detail, slam, soundstaging, dynamics and utter lack of nasties than the Rega, but the Rega has a Grado-type gestalt, and perhaps PRaT, which eludes almost everything else (excepting the SME V, which is the Denon's natural partner, strangely enough).

Anyway, I'm SO happy to have the Lenco/Rega together again, more experiments ahead!! Have fun all, and remember, the minute you change a single element in your system, all conclusions as to synergies goes out the window, it's a complicated old world. Which is why we all endlessly experiment, is it not? And thanks for the kind words Harry, keep enjoying your idlers!! Back to my Lenco/Rega/Denon, playing Kraftwerk SO liquidly/flowingly, ahhhh :-)

Here's an idler assembly question. There are these little washers that slip onto the bar that holds the idler wheel. My first question is, are there supposed to be two of them, one on the inside and one on the outside? I have two assemblies and I've jumbled things up a bit, so I forget the way it was originally set up. Also, one of these washers snapped in half. Does anyone know what they're made of? Size? Where they can be purchased? Right now I only have one placed on the inside and I think iI'm getting a vibration that seems to have robbed me of some of the magic.

Thanks,
Glenn