Delrin arm board for AR turntable [message #11771] |
Sat, 11 December 2004 16:02 |
Russellc
Messages: 397 Registered: May 2009
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Illuminati (1st Degree) |
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In some of the posts below I refered to some of the old AR "merrill mods" that are being redone by Anthony Scillia. The Arm board he made for me arrived today. I had it made to fit a mint Infinity black widow tone arm I aquired some years ago, and now decided to mount it to my AR turntable. After sending him my tonearm mounting plate and measurements he made a very nice armboard of delrin with my plate mounted right on it. This is an SME type slide mount and I didn't know if it could be done given the small armboard. The arm fit just fine and the arm is finally on the table. I don't know if its the board or the arm, but the combo made my cartridge sound MUCH better. I intend on getting his other AR mods as the become available and post on them later. So far, so good. I have no affiliation with all this, but missed the boat on all these mods back when Merrill audio offered them. I still have my AR table so I'm happy about a second shot. Russellc
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Re: Delrin arm board for AR turntable [message #11773 is a reply to message #11772] |
Sat, 11 December 2004 17:30 |
Russellc
Messages: 397 Registered: May 2009
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Illuminati (1st Degree) |
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Seems fair to me. Armboard was 50.00, and it is a nice big chunk of delrin, with quality machining & fine finish. The other prices are about the same as the original Merrill mods. Plus, my arm was for a SME mount. Opening fit with extremely close tolerances. Price also included all new hardware with locknuts. while the old outdated black widow may have also had a hand in it, I can not believe how much better my cartridge sounds when compared to when it was on the old arm and board. I hope he redoes the subplatter merrill used to make, I had a chance to buy the last one in stock at Merrill back in the day, and passed on it. I have been kicking myself HARD ever since. I have been considering a BIX, but think I'll hang onto this AR for a while. If you ever heard an ES-1 with ALL the merrill mods, you know what I mean. MUCH better than many believe. Russellc Russellc
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Re: Delrin arm board for AR turntable [message #11775 is a reply to message #11774] |
Sun, 12 December 2004 11:20 |
Russellc
Messages: 397 Registered: May 2009
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Illuminati (1st Degree) |
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Right now, I have the ortofon OM 30 on there. I went to the Jacks music site, (where the shure V15 whatever the latest version is has been available for 199.99) but their site showed SOLD OUT, with a note that shure was discontinuing that cartridge as well as the stylus! Oh well, I thought that was the direction I was going. For now, I can't get over how much better this cart sounds with this arm/board combo. I like the look of the arm and figured it wouldn't sound any worse than the stock one... turned out to best the old combo by a considerable margin. A nice surprise! The funny thing is, back in the day (circa 1975-6) I can remeber seeing the black widow in my local dealers shop and thinking how exotic it looked, but cost more than my whole analog rig at the time, about 250.00 Now I want to find something nice cart wise, surprisingly this arm seems be able to handle nicer than I anticipated. Over the years I have had people suggest I might be surprised by its performance. I should have done this long ago, but until recently had no board to fit its SME style mount. The same place we were discussing having good prices on rega also has some good prices on the goldring 1042, as well as their high output moving coil "Eorica" or something like that. I just want to make sure that I am making a substantial step up than what I already have. Clear audio has a couple, one about 200 one about 400, maybe I'll look to see if the OC9 is compatible? I believe I'll need a setup transformer for it. The search is on, Russellc
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