Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

Hi LK

Regarding the air hose.
I had Bruce set the air hose nozzle pointing up on my 2.5. So no hole needed to be drilled. If the nozzle is pointing down it can also be turned up and re epoxied but you need to be careful with this depending on its condition. Its an alternative.

regarding the wiring. this was one of the revelations for me as far as owning this tonearm.
If I may use the analogy of walking a dog.
For me achieving a good setup with my ET tonearm is like training a dog and the wire loom is the leash.
A well trained dog never tugs on the leash and the leash always remains limp to the handler.
The ET2 doesn't need the wiring and/or air tube as some other air bearing linear trackers do in their design for damping - its a free spirit and just wants to ride the grooves that are not crazy eccentric. Anyone that has moved the spindle in and out of the manifold with just 3 psi, knows what we are talking about - think - Slippery.

So a recommendation for later on.

Pull the wiring from the armtube/spindle areas. Set the ET2 up and balance it without the wires.
Then add the wires. You will see first hand how much the wires affect its movement. Without doing this you just don't know how much effect the wires have.

effect vs affect above - I can never remember ? so I used both - 50/50.

As far as setting up the wires on the ET2 once balanced without them; simply add/run the wires along the armtube (are you and "in'ee or and out'ee") direct to your phono stage with a happy face loop in between to remind you of the great setup job you did. :^)
thats it.

I am still searching for a wireless solution btw.

HNTB and Frogman - regarding suspensions.
My opinion is there are suspensions and then there are suspensions.
Think firm Pneumatic suspension.

Frogman
+1 on removing springs; certainly trying it. Never owned the Goldmund, but have done so with three VPI's with great results.

I also removed the springs from a HW19MKIV and TNT. Went pucks with the HW19 and Pneumatic with the TNT. a pic of the TNT is in my system page. I believe you are also running a pneumatic type suspension now on your TNT Frogman ?

Chris, I agree re firm pneumatic suspension; that was the best solution for me given my table's environment. My TNT sits on a wall shelf which fixed the springy floor problem I was having, but created others. With my previous HW19's (II, III & IV) I experimented with just about everything. The sound was best with upturned large tiptoes, but settled on upturned short tiptoes sitting inside Sorbothane pucks as the best compromise. I did not like sound with the springs nearly as much.

BTW, the Forsell still sits in the box (es) :-(

Thanks Again CT,

Have done a careful 1st setup trying to free the wires as far as possible, the arm came with VdHul silver wires, a little stiff from what I can gather, will only find out what she does once I get compressor connections done with moisture filter, hopefully tomorrow, its been quite a challenge just getting male to female to androgenous etc...
talk about affect vs effect!

Have a loaned MM for these early learning days, till I find my ET feet... but it looks gorgeous with a new clean plexiglass surface to hide the old surface damage on Goldmund acrylic, resprayed the base with quality german metallic black, Goldmund is back to beautiful...

Will test as is before I alter the springs etc, but I hear a majority in favour. My room is quite large, with a T&G hardwood floor, on a stainless steel spiked stand with double glass shelves separated by sorbothane, have to take all this into acount before altering the system.

IMHO Pierre Lurne who I think designed these Goldmund TT's was no slouch, there's a lot of brilliant thinking in there.

Thanks again for all the info, as I've been setting up this machine I realise how much brilliant engineering has gone into the design, its like an open ended musical annotation system, just waiting for someone to understand it...

Frogman - BTW, the Forsell still sits in the box (es) :-(

Frogman - this indicates to me that you are happy with the current set up. enjoy the music :-)

fwiw - I find it very ironic and kind of funny actually that your Forsell, and my JN Lenco, two highly praised tables from a particular bloggers webage, lie in storage..... albeit for different reasons. Fascinating hobby.

LK - VdHul silver wires, a little stiff from what I can gather

imo - stiff for this ET2 air bearing application - not great. In another air bearing application where the design needs the wire to resist a little for damping - another story. Which do you feel is a better design ? Stiff wire inside a speaker cabinet - not a bad thing.

my experiences - Braided unshielded wires help to resist RF, which is a good thing. But the wire itself become very unruly with a mind of its own when braided and asked to curve just a little. This can become a real PITA real fast. Where it leaves the armtube my wires are separated like strands of hair. Their physical resistance is cut by at least half by doing this. Each wire is then tested for RF individually. Preamp muted, lower the stylus onto a still record, unmute your preamp phonostage turn the volume up - move each wire around until things are quiet. Hold in place with blue tack.

Look forward to your impressions LK.

Cheers

New member of the owner's club here. I'm a bit confused by mine though. Do I need a special turntable?