Phantom Supreme to 4Point-14?

@lewm , that would explain why the Mk2 I saw seemed like it was born to HiFiDo on hold. Last week I saw nice one on the Yahoo Japan auction site, complete in the box. Buyee, the bidding proxy for foreigners, would not allow me to bid more than 300,000 yen despite my advance request for a limit increase. It went for 340,000. Foiled again!

I have to retract my sentiments about Hifido, to a degree.  I once did successfully purchase a turntable from them, Pioneer Exclusive P3.  That purchase was carried out on my behalf by a guy who lived in Tokyo. Then he subsequently asked me if I minded if he kept the tt for himself, to which I agreed.  So I never did get to own a P3, but I've got enough TTs to keep me busy anyway.

Dear Raul, Your prejudice about a.o. tonearms ''prevent you'' to grasp

the question. The question is NOT which arm is better but WHY SOME

OF THEM  have limited counter weights. One of possible reasons than

are kinds of bearings. In this context I mentioned Ikeda's preference

for ''steel bearings''. I myself have experiece not only with both EPA!00

(the black one looks fantsticc) but also with 4 versions of Reed. My

latest 3P I needed to put together myslef. So I was able to SEE the bearings.

Those are cheap .artificial sapphire kind which anybody can check qua

prices. Those are ''hard to believe'' in connection with present tonearm

prices. BTW my preferenc is since 1984 FR-64 S. For good reasons

irrespective what Raul thinks. MM Raul is different ''animal'' than tonearms

and  other componnts  Raul..

Graham’s customer service is so so at best.  Kuzma’s customer service is first class. 

@nandric : You are wrong again and talk because you have " mouth ". I never posted if the EPA 100 is better but only about its overall design made not by a single person but for a company that in those times belongs to the japanese gigantic Matushita group where Panasonic belongs too.

You can be sure that no one has more resources, dedicated and experts engineers, quality level of design and excecution of designs that TECHNICS.

In those times Technics never did a single design mistake in all its analog audio items. Technics manufactured TT motors for companies as Micro Seiki and others, his SP-02 was designed expressily to use as a motor for the recording cutting machines and even the SP10 MK3 motors were used in those cutting machines. You have no idea what you are talking about. With all respect to Ikeda and Reed you named they are almost " nothing " against what was Technics in those times: a " brutal " corporation.

There is no single problem with heavier counterweigths in the EPA 100, Technics gaves it as an add-on for those customers that need it. The tonearm bearing desing is unique gimbal kind using 20 precision ruby balls ( Technics precission not other manufacturer level. ). Got it? period.

Technics EPA-100 on thevintageknob.org

R.