Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

No worries vpi,

Those are from Lowe's Hardware, in the audiophile aisle...
;)

They are screw protector caps, made to put on the end of screws to keep from catching or cutting yourself, you can find all colors, try Ace, Home Depot, Lowes... usually in the speciality hardware section. 

Regarding troughs, mine had the little end cap fall out and subsequently disappeared, so I have no "end" for mine currently, need to craft a fix for that.

Bruce’s description of the mag and cf, it appears the compliance of my Delos is a better match for the mag. Do you agree?

Harry

here is the ET2 Wand Guideline and some thoughts.


Guideline

Aluminum Wand ----------->Carbon Fiber Wand ----------->Magnesium Wand

Carts
High Compliance ----- ->Medium to Low Compliance ---> Low Compliance

So.
If you only had one wand and play

Higher compliance MM ...........................................Go with Aluminum Wand

Higher compliance MM / med - low compliance MC .......Go with the CF Wand

Only use low compliance MC. ......................Go with the Magnesium Wand

The CF wand is the best all around wand. If you send Bruce an extra aluminum wand, he will wrap it for you and convert it to a Carbon Fiber wand.
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With that as we know this vinyl is all about resonances and vibrations. Anyone that is using a low compliance MC with the aluminum wand has done "mods", "tweaks" in their system chain somewhere to make it work.

If you go through this thread you know that members like Frogman, Richard Krebs Dover at the top of head, plus others, all did extensive mods to their ET2 aluminum wands / and to run lower compliance MC among other carts.

In the picture that BH’ attached - Hi BH’... been a long time - nice setup and nice avatar :^)

He appears to be using an aluminum wand with an MC ? It is hard to tell if it has the CF wrap on it. Are you still using the single leaf spring BH?

When I used an MM on the Magnesium wand it was absolutely strident. Even though the cart sounded fine with the aluminum and CF wands. This tells me the Mag wand really is for Low compliance and maybe a point of no return :^0

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So Logic tells us that if someone made a Low compliance MC work with their Aluminum Wand; should they then introduce the Big Dog Mag wand; they most certainly will be making changes to their system, even though the guidelines say they (Low Compliance MC/ Mag Wand) are the best combo together. Make sense ?

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the single shot wiring deserves a separate discussion.
It is filled with frustrations in fighting physics, but the reward is worth it in the end. The key is not to fight physics. Braiding wires is great for dealing with interference, but not so good in allowing the ET2 to have freeplay. The solution you go with will be determined by your turntable plinth style. You can take this one to the bank.

I found a compromise works well. We can discuss more.

Harry - some Canadian perspective for you on the cost of that Mag armwand.

$575 US dollars is now $775 Cdn. dollars ....... :^(

The differences between the Aluminum and Mag wands for readers.

Click on this link.

https://goo.gl/photos/Rjcvbjfrms23zc1M6

Cheers Chris

Hi Chris, yes, had not enabled the "watch" on this thread, so was oblivious until recently it had restarted. 

I indeed have 2 aluminum wands and yes, running LOMC's - Ortofon Quintet Black (boron cantilever), Ortofon Quintet Mono, and an AT33PTG/II.

I have had different wraps on them in the past, and stuffed foam inside too (what is your stance on that?), but they are naked now.
I have ordered my own sheet of CF wrap though, so am going to give that a try.

I do still have the original single leaf, but seeing your post I did write (again) to Bruce yesterday, so might change that up too.

And I am shamed into knowing I need to clean the manifold too! Although I do have dual inline filters and dry Colorado air in my favor.

Oh, and out of order, but Bruce recommended this pump to me a few months back, so am running this now, is performing well, very quiet.

Chris,
Thanks for in depth info on wands.  Still mulling this issue.  It seems the cf would work with a wider range of cartridges but the mag is a closer match to my Delos.   I'm back to two springs with no damping.  In the process I also checked/reset all alignment-azimuth, overhang, leveling, vtf, etc. Last night I was getting the best sound I have heard from my rig.   

BH,
I'm on my way to the Lowe's audiophile aisle :).    While I don't have the knowledge or expertise of others on this thread, for what it's worth, I can highly recommend you try the double and triple spring planks.  They are pretty inexpensive and make a large change to the sound.  I found triple springs too strident and the double just right, but with damping the triple might work for someone else.

Bruce recommended that Alita pump to me a while back too, but I am confused by the recommendation.  The Alita A15 only puts out 1.4 psi and the ET II manual recommends a minumum of 2.5 with the low pressure manifold.  I am running a Medo in a quiet box with a fan for cooling.  The Medo is rated at 7.11 psi.  It says it only has a 60 minute duty cycle but with the plate fan on the quiet box I am listening for hours with no problems.  Lots of Medo pumps on EBay.
Cheers,
Harry

Hi Harry,

Looking at the new springs currently...

I made same assumption on the Alita and Bruce clarified from the product website:

   

Look at the pressure versus flow graph, at lower flow rates the pressure goes up, the Alita AL-15 usually measures about 3.5 - 4.0 when operating a tonearm.

it is turning out to be more than strong enough. 

👍