Maplenoll Mailing Discussion List

Hi Jim,

I've owned a Maplenoll Ariadne Signature for about 10 years. I did some minor upgrades, mostly asthetic or correcting Bob Dilger's shoddy workmanship, not design parameters. I'm very happy with it although I haven't had alot of opportunity for comparison to other serious rigs. It's maounted with a Cardas Heart into a VAC CPA 1 mk2, into a tweeked Cary 300SEI LX20, into tweeked Gallo References, using all Mapleshade wire. It easily leaves the digital behind, of course.

One tweek that was very worthwhile sonically was to replace the wire with single runs of the thinnest Acrotec wire available from Michael Percy, directly from the cartridge into male RCAs, into the preamp located under the table. It was much more transparent. The output of an MC cartridge needs VERY little current capablity from the wire, so one run per leg is PLENTY. It saves on interconnects and all the requisite jacks and solder joints and is similar in design to the Mapleshade Omega Micro interconnects I use.

After recently getting a new Cardas Heart for my old one that had a worn out suspension, I reassessed my rig. I ended up tweeking the arm to cope with a less than optimal mass/compliancy match that had been gnawing at me. Evidently, low compliant cartridges aren't fond of airbearing linear trackers. Mistracking can become an issue on trying passages. I surmised that maximizing the oil trough by filling it to the gills and lower the paddle as much as possible without scraping bottom and setting the tracking force on the heavy side of 2.1 grams might help and by golly it did! Firming up all joints with super glue help significantly. Any juncture point benefitted from the natural capillary action of the glue to spread to any adjacent surface, such as cartridge/headshell, headshell/oil paddle, headshell/arm tube, arm tube/bracket, bracket/air bearing tube, counterweight/bracket, etc.. I had superglued all the arm joints previously but more definitely helped. I have sacrificed fine VTA adjustment for ridgidity since I have limited patience for attending to such things on an ongoing basis, especialy since the Mapenoll doesn't lend itself to ease of this, to it's sonic benifit. I also thought that a little resonance control via judicious (minimal) use of mortight damping might help and, once again, it did appear so. I used small bits of mortight on some of the junctures but this can be easily overdone rendering the sound lifeless. It proved usefull around the azimuth/VTA screw but not at the cartridge end of the arm. I had long ago filled the counterweight tube with mortight at Bob Dilger's suggestion. The result of all this was increased tracking ability and consequent cleaner sibilance and transparancy throughout the range.

Hey roymio, why don't you tell share it with the class? Sounds interesting. Why did you DIY instead of finding a stock Ariadne signature?

Roymio, you're probably aware that your arm sounds alot like Maplenoll's Apollo table/arm. The advantage was puported to be rigidity, I thought, not mass. The Apollo was fit with a vacuum hold down to go with an arm whose VTA would shift dramaticall with warps otherwise. What's your experience with cartridge compatibility/tracking/mass?

Tim