Ortofon RS-309D opinions

Thanks, Downunder. Interesting. As you say, more than one way to skin a cat. Maybe the Japanese Ortofon method is better, who knows.

After my message, I changed the pivot to spindle distance from 311mm to 314mm for my SPU Royal. So effective length is now 329mm.

On my SPU, I prefer the sound of the 329mm effective length. Sounds more pure and clearer. I am not going back to the Japanese 326mm for SPU.

I will next try my technics EPC100C mk4 at effective length 320mm. This will be interesting.

cheers

Sprog, I havde a 309-D and the tracking force adjustment knob works just fine for me. I do not have to move the counterweight to adjust the tracking force, just the knob.

You may want to check with Ortofon because the knob should work or it would not be on the arm.

Thanks Dmgrant1. It does work, but tiny movements make huge differences to the VTF, and they're not consistent - ie I can set it to 2g and then try to set it to 2.1 but it's impossible, a tiny movement up (or down) can add 1g to the VTF! Also, when set at, say, 2g it will fluctuate wildly over time. The only way to keep it fixed is to set it to zero and use the counterweight (which then has it's own problems - setting it to give a certain VTF, and then make small changes - is really really difficult because of it's weight).

I've heard that this is a known issue, but I wondered if anyone here at audiogon had come across it and if they know of a possible fix. You must be lucky to have one that's okay...

Ortofon makes the RS-309D and the RS-309S , the latest is less expencive but I'm told by someone in Ortofon at the latest Top Audio Show in Milano it's the same arm.
Further the 309S has the classical counterweight screwed on the arm and maybe it's easiest to keep the correct VTF.

My cent!