Eureka!!!! I found all my Maplenoll tonearm bits (stuffed in boxes all over the place) and will finally be building the Lenco-Noll I have been threatening to build Lo these many years. I have gone to all this trouble and planned this for so long because this is the only air-bearing, or linear tracker of any sort, which was ever made with a fluid damping trough at the front of the tonearm. In fact, I think it is one of only two front-loading troughs ever developed, period (the other being the Townshend trough). We all know fluid damping helps focus sound in most tonearms which have that provision, but damping is most effective at the headshell, where the spurious energies originate. I lived with a Maplenoll 'table for many years and can attest to its effectiveness. Anyway, I start cutting tomorrow, having already worked out the design, which will include a tonearm board for another tonearm...why waste all that space ;-)? This baby is reserved for my Decca Super Gold, which will likely be my Final Testament (but I have so many other audio goodies, including my Vestigal tonearm I am dying to try out ;-)!!).
Hi Oregon, there are so many candidates for the Rega tonearms, which favour MCs, especially when mounted on a Lenco, as you and everyone else knows who tried the venerable Denons and other MCs on them!! My main source before starting Da Thread was a Lenco/Rega RB300/Kiseki Blue, an MC which is leagues ahead of an OC9 or a Denon in terms of detail, and which has musical energy akin (but likely not equal to) that of the Denons. The other night I was mighty impressed by the Dynavector 17D MKIII, which again has a musical energy and PRaT lacking in too many high-end MCs. But thinking outside the box for a moment, and following Mario's thought, why not do something interesting and unexpected, in the light of the fact that the Denon DL-103"E" is so much better than the regular 103 - without sacrificing its musicality/gestalt/PRaT: send your Denon to Sound Smith for their ultimate ruby cantilever/extreme stylus profile installation?? I now have a Shibui Denon with boron cantilever and Shibata tip, and I can say that it is very definitely a Denon, with all the slamming and energy that carries with it, but with extreme detail and beautiful extended high frequencies. Interesting that the Shibui uses the regular Denon as a platform rather than the 103"R", which may have been too much of a good thing when mated to an extreme cantilever/stylus. You'd be first on the block with this baby!!
Hi David, I mourn your packed-away Lenco, may it see the light of day once again!!
The Dynavector tonearm arrived safe and sound, thankfully, and speaking of the Transcriptors Vestigal tonearm, could two tonearms be any different? The Vestigal is a tiny delicate affair, with a headshell tied by a string to a counterweight at the back, with the tonearm tube being a beam which swings with no vertical pivotting. The Dynavector is a MASSIVE affair with its headshell linked by a tiny shaft directly to the counterweight, the lateral and horizontal bearings being split. But while being visually as opposed as the North Pole is from the South, like those two poles the two are essentially the same design: both separate the horizontal bearings from the vertical, both using the tonearm tube as a beam with no vertical play which swings out over the record from its horizontal bearings at the tonearm pillar, while the vertical pivot point is very close to the cartridge. I'll post photos soon with one next to the other for those who are interested.
Evidently, the Dyna will favour low-compliance MCs and MMs (perhaps the Decca would work!) while the Vestigal favours high compliance MMs (and high compliance MCs). The Vestigal literature, btw, mentions that "the best cartridges are set to trace at 1/4 gram, at 70F" and that "your records will last 100 times longer when used with the Vestigal tonearm"!!!! And though the Dynavector is a Monster of mass compared with the Vestigal (don't drop it on your foot ;-)), it also has a very small vertical mass, which it achieves differently than the Vestigal. The Vestigal is a beautiful piece of work btw, more like a violin than an appliance, with six different adjustments (!!!), each needing to be adjusted to match the others as well, and with jewel bearings, which I bought after hearing how incredibly good the Transcriptors Skeleton was for a belt-drive, with amazing transparency I ascribed mainly to the tonearm (though the 'table is very very good). We'll soon find out. A heavenly match for Grados, and likely my Ortofon M15E Super. What can it do on a big idler?!?
