Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

@nandric 
you cannot abbreviate the word methodology to the first 4 letters. you introduce spam. I have asked for it to be deleted along with the planted bogus user.  

@dover
And one of the best arms ever made regardless of price and most unfairly maligned.
It beggars belief that on audiogon there is so much misinformation on the ET2, when discussing tonearms in general, when the Eminent Technology website contains more testing and test data to support the design and substantiate their claims on performance than any other tonearm on the market.
It’s sad that there is much to learn on the ET website even if your preference is a conventional pivoted arm that folk just cant be bothered to take advantage of Bruces formidable knowledge.

The ET2 was introduced in the same year as the Perfect Sound - CD. The magazine reviewers focus was on Digital.

So One - Bad timing and two - no reviews, that I have ever seen - past the basic setup not optimal and it was still reviewed really well.

One of the biggest mistakes the first time ET2 user makes is to use all the weights supplied on the I Beam, when what they should do is use only as many as needed to put them at the end of the Beam. But then, this is beyond basic setup however, and a more advanced setup.An understanding of physics comes into play. IMO if anything an Appendix could have been added to the manual to illustrate finer setup points. With a Pivot arm once you setup you are basically done. The ET2 invites many finer adjustments / upgrades as this thread shows.

The Audiophile equipment hobby is all about constant change. Others need numerous cartridges or tonearms to satisfy this need. ET2 folks need only make adjustments to setup to get better and better - same cartridge.

I asked them to edit your post removing the spam link, and to delete the spam post and spam user. Audiogon chose to remove your post. You can post it again but don't use the first four letters only of the word methodology. Also no personal info about others.

This is a Public Chat Forum, very different from even a couple years ago, the internet is much more interconnected to FB-Meta, Google, Twitter, TicToc etc....  I spent 40 years in IT, much if it in Security.  Don't take it personal.     

@lewm

Lewm

I normally don’t contribute to this thread, because I do not own and have never owned an ET2 or 2.5. However, I concede that it is probably a great tonearm. But when you speak of Newton, keep in mind that the net force exerted by a small weight at the end of a long lever That is required to balance a cartridge at a specific VTF will be the same as the force generated when you use a larger weight mounted closer to the pivot or fulcrum. Therefore I am wondering why mounting a large weight close to the pivot point makes any difference as far as overcoming the air pressure and collapsing the air suspension , Assuming the same VTF is thereby achieved in both cases.

Lewm

Setting VTF on a pivot arm is two dimensional. With the ET 2, the mass is adjustable so you could call it a three dimensional setup. Did you know that the counterweights are decoupled by a spring, and that the cartridge itself only sees the vertical mass and not the horizontal mass ? The word "stressed" is a better word than "collapse" Many years ago I never did collapse it with extra DIY weights, but if I added even more weight who knows. The experiment was over before that.

Page 9 of the ET2 manual on design. Adjustable Effective Mass

The effective mass of the tonearm is adjustable, both vertically and horizontally. The arm has low-medium mass vertically and medium to high mass horizontally. Four counterweights allow the vertical / horizontal mass to be changed. For example; if the user decreases the amount of counterweights used, and moved this position back (higher scale number) the horizontal inertia of the tonearm would go down and the vertical inertia would go up.

You can download the ET2 manual here

http://www.eminent-tech.com/techsuppt.htm

If you read the first 10 pages of the manual and the tech section, I believe you will get a good understanding of the tonearm.

@pegasus
that is an interesting comment

The longer i-beam allows much lower resonance frequencies ie. potentially a wider tuning range.

With my ET 2.5 and the long I Beam matching the bass response (punchy and tight) same as digital and 15 IPS was easier. So there is definitely a tuning advantage. I attributed this to the increased vertical inertia. I have asked Bruce for comment as well.

Re: Room tuning
I have always considered the bass the most important aspect of any room tuning because if you get it right the rest falls into place. With full range speakers and a dedicated room I always place the speakers on one of the room’s bass nodes. If the room is not too large, these nodes can be found easily without software, just by getting on your knees with bass playing. If your wife walks in while doing this man oeuvre just say you lost something in the carpet, then ask her for help to move the speaker.
Subwoofers are easier and placed beside the listening position - this is a big advantage as the Sub DB levels can be turned down really low. Very easy to room tune.
For full range speakers, in my previous room (longer, rectangular) and shooting down the length of the room, the bass nodes occurred every about every third in the room.
So that is where the speakers were placed on the first third.