Will Michell Technoarm work with Denon 103R?

The main thing about the Silver that I like over the other RB250 hotrods is that the Silver has the bearings moved out to the bearing housing yoke instead of having them in the arm tube. This widens the "stance" of the bearings, and this is a much more stable arrangement for the bearings.

Regarding the other stuff on the TecnoArm

Holes drilled lowers effective mass, which is going the wrong way for the cartridge you intend to use.

Foam inside the arm is not a good thing in my opinion.

The machined headshell and counterweight are nice things.

Unbroken wiring upgrade is a good idea, but I'm not a fan of silver litz wire.

With the OL Silver, you get a better basic structure, but you still need to buy some additional things like an upgraded counterweight. It is not "the last word" in tonearms, but it is a very nice choice in the price range, especially if you plan to use a low compliance cartridge, and that it has the availability of the HiFi mod to make it a match for such cartridges. For "leading edge dynamics" it is probably one of the best setups that you can buy, regardless of price. It may lack in certain areas compared to the high-priced superarms, but is a quite competent performer in all areas. And even the superarms aren't perfect, either. At least, with this arm with the HiFi mod, it can claim state-of-the-art performance in one area(leading edge dynamics), which is more than anyone can say about any other sub-$1k tonearm. Not perfect, but nothing is, and it is a good arm for the money.

Thanks for the replies Tom!

What about the OL Silver makes it a better arm than the Michell Technoarm (a) in your opinion? It looks like the tecnoarm has a better designed counterweight

Thanks!

I met Conrad Mas, the designer of the Avid turntables at the London high end show yesterday. The Avids work by routing vibration induced in the disc through the spindle/bearing into the subchassis.

What I thought was particularly interesting was that this relies on the arm/table connection to be strongly coupled - so SME and Rega arms work best. He commented that unipivots and Schroeders don't work well (on an Avid) because the vibration in the arm finds and upsets the most compliant element of the system.

He commented that Origin Live arms were not as effective because they slacken the bearings off compared to Rega.

If you fit the HiFi mod to either arm, the effective mass will be fine for the DL103R. Yes, there is a little difference in mass between the two arms, but with the HiFi mod on them, you won't notice it.

I think that the OL Silver is the better arm, but the Techno Arm has some nice features with the counterweight, and wiring upgrades.

Thanks for the responses!

I guess the main piece of my question is about the effective mass of the arm. The michell technoarm has holes cut in the arm that reduce the effective mass of the arm. My understanding of the hifi tweak is that the main point of it is to increase the effective mass. Given this effective mass difference (I'm not sure what the actual #s are) would the OL Silver be a more suitable arm to the Denon 103R cart? Or will the tecnoarm with the hifi mod be just as good a match, even though it has less effective mass?

Thanks,

Todd

You can apply the HiFi mod to the Technoarm, in a very similar way as the RB250. Just Blu-Tack the weights onto the sides of the bearing housing, so it appears like they are extensions of the bearing axle, and it will work fine.

Very worthwhile mod when using the DL103R.

Technoarm is based on the Rega RB250, same as the OL Silver. Both are classed as medium mass arms and should work fine with a DL103. If there is a difference in effective mass it shouldn't be sufficiently different to cause you problems.

I've just heard that my Expressimo is being shipped today. I'll be fitting a DL103 in it.