Hi Lew and everyone else, sorry about the delay, out here in the country I don't always have access to Da 'Net, and the latest round of snowstorms has slowed everything down some more!!
Lew, the bearings did indeed come from Boca Bearing, but I must now add a caveat until further experimentation/notice: though in my own system - most particularly the Bauhaus Lenco/RS-A1/Monster Cable Sigma Genesis 2000 (a new acquisition to duke it out with the JMW/Ortofon Jubilee) - the bearing seemed to be a clear improvement, in another system the power and majesty of the Lenco seemed to be severely affected, though in terms of clarity, silence and detail it was a clear winner. In fact, I had done two things: obssessively restored the main bearing, AND inserted the ceramic ball bearing, so I'm not sure what was doing what. The new cleaning regimen did indeed improve the frictionlessness (added many minutes to the free rotation) of the main bearing without the substitution of the ceramic ball bearing, and did indeed improve the sonics substantially, as the recipient of one of my older Lencos attests.
But, I think the ceramic ball may be pulling that old audiophile trick I've heard so often from all kinds of equipment, from electronics through speakers and cartridges, acrylic platters and so on: strip away/supress a large part of the midbass so as to expose the midrange and high frequencies and create the illusion of increased clarity, speed/transients and detail. I don't yet know and will perform some comparisons today and through the week. It might have been my mood, or some other subjective phenomenon which caused my reaction to the changeover in a very pricey and impressive system (much more powerful before the changeover, but the owner of the Lenco loved the increase in clarity/silence/black background notwithstanding my own reaction), need to do more listening.
This tonal trick may in fact help some unbalanced set-ups (too rich, perhaps like mine which now prefers MCs, which thanks to the RS-A1 and JMW are now much more musical/MM-like), but in some systems - as yesterday (violins seemed borderline shrill, all the rosin and resin was gone) - will create problems.
Now, this ball bearing is critical, as the platter rides on it and so the whole sonic landscape depends on it. It's possible the sound of the Lenco depends on a metal ball, and Boca Bearing also has a variety of metal ball bearings which might be a better bet. Anyway, I'll get back to you all later on this issue (very time-consuming comparisons), so don't all stampede towards the ceramic balls just yet, I'll do dome listening today via my handy-dandy Bauhaus Lenco, via a similarly treated main bearing, but with the original steel ball bearing.
As to the acrylic, I bond it to the top of the platform the Lenco rides on Lew, not to the Lenco plinth itself. This improves the sound in most systems I've tried it in, though of course the usual synergy and room matching issues apply.
Finally, a note on the MM vs MC issue: I've long been advocating the superiority of MMs over MCs in all kinds of musically-important areas, more specifically gestalt (the sense of all musicians playing together to produce music rather than a disparate collection producing information/detail as many MCs/tonearm/'tables do), tonality (MMs capture resonances, wood, resins, varnish better, especially the Grado Woodies) and PRaT (Pace, Rhythm and Timing, making music especially exciting/driving); and that also many MMs produce surprising levels of detail when properly matched to tonearms (which usually means low-mass). But with my new sound-room, new/old very-rich/tubey Sony 2000F preamp (fabulous MC loadable phono stage) and with the acquisition of the MC-humanizing JMW 10.5 and RS-A1 tonearms, MCs now have the advantage in my system, which explains the current situation of MC-dominance at home. This is a first for me, and I'm still having fun with MMs, just a matter of synergies for the moment, working on getting a new soundroom, which will affect speaker choice and so on.
Anyway, have fun all, I'll get back to the bearing issue!
