Technics SL1200 Cartridge Alignment

[memepool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nkoulban /img/forum/go_quote.gif I only have my RP850 to compare with the Technics and based on using the some AT OC9II cart, the Technics wins hand down. .

I find that quite surprising. The Technics should definitely sound tighter but I wouldn't have thought it would completely trounce the RP-850? especially since the Rotel has the better tonearm. Although your RP850 was seized up wasn't it, did you check the bearing for damage?


Quote:

Originally Posted by nkoulban /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm going to add an isopltmat, 1/4" thick Technics rubber mat, KAB tonearm damper and KAB strobe disabler. It will be interesting to see how much the Technics improves after the mods. I'm reticent to put an OL Silver on the deck as I will miss out on VTA adjustment and I like the ability to swap headshells.

Thing is by the time you've shelled out for all these mods you could have bought a standard Rega RB250 which will yield a much bigger performance than all of them put together. There are several VTA adjustors on the market for Rega arms. The simplest is the the Michell one which is pretty cheap but very effective.

The OL Silver is certainly a lovely arm but just the bog standard cooking Rega is still streets ahead of the SL1200MKV arm. BTW I believe this differs to the MK 2 mainly in respect of wiring. The fundamental design is unaltered.

Plating the arm tube will make it more rigid in it's own right but ignores the issue of the removable headshell collet and all the various other joints which compromise it's structural integrity and colour the sound. An upgrade geared more towards durability really as to make any difference to the arms sound you'd need to make it from a Titanium alloy like the SME III or Alphason HR-100S which of course would require retooling and therefore be much more expensive

If you really can't live without a removable headshell then the SME 309 would be the best bet these days.

 

[nkoulban]

I'm sure you are right about the arm on the Technics, I may end up going for an OL Silver in the end, still, it will be interesing finding out. As for the RP850 its performance may very well have been affected by bearing issues, I don't know. What I heared was less surface noise, blacker backgrounds, more detail and information. The differences could clearly be heared, although to be fair to the Rotel it still did give a good account of itself.

It's true that to get a Technics to perform at a high level you will need to spend, however the price of a a VPI Scout or a Michel Gyrodec with Techno arm are very expensive here in Australia ($4,000 to $5,500), so the Technics with mods (KAB or OL) is a relative bargain IMO. Plus access to parts and support is easier with the Technics.

I appreciate the views expressed here, this is certainly an education in analogue for me.

 

[memepool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nkoulban /img/forum/go_quote.gif the Technics with mods (KAB or OL) is a relative bargain

No argument there.

The one thing you could also try is getting a new armboard for the Technics made up to fit the RP-850 arm. PM searchenabler as he has done exactly this so should be able to advise you but it should simply be a question of measuring the mounting distance on the the RP-850 with a ruler.

soundsupports in the UK will supply you with a blank armboard for the SL1200 or maybe cut a Rotel patern for you if you can supply the mounting distance. This is an easily reversible mod if you find you actually prefer the Technics arm.

Also I reckon this ADC headshell will fit the Rotel arm LP Gear: Headshell for straight tonearms ADC type so you may still be able to have this feature.

 

[nkoulban]

Thanks for the info! This will allow me to try another arm without spending too much. This forum rocks!

 

[lcrim]

The Technics arm w/ the KAB damping tray and the tonearm rewire is better than any of the alternatives you are looking at. With the OL based on the Rega you will no longer be able to adjust VTA with the turn of a dial and the damping tray won't fit. Its a bass ackwards step to say nothing of cost. Doesn't it seem logical that a company as large as Matsushiita could properly engineer a double gimbal tonearm. Just check the bearing tolerances vs. whatever you are being told is better.
There is a far easier method to align the cartridge that the rest apparently are unaware of. Your TT should have come with a small jig that fits on the headshell and when the cartridge is square side to side and the actual point of the diamond is square w/ the end of the jig, tighten the screws, you're done.

Larry

 

[ssportclay]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lcrim /img/forum/go_quote.gif The Technics arm w/ the KAB damping tray and the tonearm rewire is better than any of the alternatives you are looking at. With the OL based on the Rega you will no longer be able to adjust VTA with the turn of a dial and the damping tray won't fit. Its a bass ackwards step to say nothing of cost. Doesn't it seem logical that a company as large as Matsushiita could properly engineer a double gimbal tonearm. Just check the bearing tolerances vs. whatever you are being told is better. There is a far easier method to align the cartridge that the rest apparently are unaware of. Your TT should have come with a small jig that fits on the headshell and when the cartridge is square side to side and the actual point of the diamond is square w/ the end of the jig, tighten the screws, you're done. Larry

The Technics arm costs about $65 and the Origin Live Silver costs about $1100. Is one better off spending a lot of money on a cheap arm or installing a good arm? A good arm can always be resold at a later date.

 

[lcrim]

The idea that spending more actually buys you more is quite foolish. The Technics tooling was paid for long ago and one can now reap the rewards of that but if one prefers spending multiples on perceived value be my guest. The cost of the damping tray and the tonearm rewire is less than $350 not $1100.

Larry

 

[memepool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lcrim /img/forum/go_quote.gif The Technics arm w/ the KAB damping tray and the tonearm rewire is better than any of the alternatives you are looking at. With the OL based on the Rega you will no longer be able to adjust VTA with the turn of a dial and the damping tray won't fit. Its a bass ackwards step to say nothing of cost. Doesn't it seem logical that a company as large as Matsushiita could properly engineer a double gimbal tonearm. Just check the bearing tolerances vs. whatever you are being told is better.

It's not a question of Technics not being able to make a good tonearm, rather that the design of the arm on the 1200MK2 has always been it's weakest point, since it was released back in the '70s and Technics have done little if anything to rectifiy this with the MK3/4/5, because by then sound quality wasn't the chief selling point.

You have to remember that this deck came out in the late 1970s as a mid range Hi-Fi deck and is only still in production because it's been adopted as a DJ workhorse.

Of course Technics made better tonearms than the one on the SL1200, like the EPA100/250/500 but these were designed to partner their top end motorboards like the SP10/15/25. They also of course sold the 1200 without an arm as the SL120, realising that any self respecting audiophile at the time would have wanted to fit an SME 3009.

But they, like all Japanese major manufacturers, left the vinyl market when CD came along and that was the end of R&D into turntables for them. Only smaller specialist companies like Rega and SME continued to work on such things.

There is a lot more on all this in a previous thread here http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f7/tec...grades-366309/ including old magazine reviews with measuements of the various Technics and Rega arms.

And there is a lot more to tonearm design than just measuring bearing tolerances...

The KAB USA damper is mainly designed to damp high compliance DJ carts like the Ortofon Concords, which they seem so so fond of, because the mass of the Technics arm is a little on the high side to control such lightweight bouncy carts.

Of course it was never originally designed to work with carts like this, but they do reduce the resonance and resulting colouration inherent in the arm, by getting rid of the headshell.

However if you want to use anything beyond a very basic cart and upgrade to a decent Moving Coil for instance then a Rega arm will be a measurably superior platform to mount it on. There is no need to go as high as the Origin Live Silver either as a standard cooking RB-250 for 250USD will walk all over the Technics arm.

Plus there are loads of VTA adjustors on the market which work perfectly well with the Rega type arms.

 

[lcrim]

I don't know where to start.
The fact is that the price of all the parts necessary to replace the Technics 12xx tonearm is around $265 not $65 . If you factor into that figure the economies of scale in producing millions of those world wide as opposed to OL's maybe thousands of units all told, you can see that the $1100 Origin Live cost must be highly inflated to be profitable.
The fact is that the Technics tonearm is rated @ 12 gms mass which is usually categorized as medium while the Rega 250 at 11 gms. mass is somehow rated completely different.
The fact is that the Rega 250 tonearm bearings have 7X the friction of the double gimbal Technics 12xx tonearm is highly significant, not to be trivialized.
The fact is that DJ cartridges such as the Ortofon Concorde are not high compliance but rather low compliance running at excessively high downforces that would swamp any attempt to deal with resonance through fluid damping.
The fact is that SME, Basis Vector and Triplanar tonearms utilize fluid damping which would certainly argue for its usefulness. The use of fluid damping is obviously not well understood by some on this board.
The fact is that even the OP is using a modern moving coil cartridge (AT OC-9) w/ the damped Technics arm and seems satisfied. There are many other such examples that can be found on boards like the AA vinyl board.
The only valid criticism of the Technics arm is the quality of the wiring which was improved in the M5G series and can be updated to Cardas Litz through a reasonably priced KAB mod.

Larry

 

[ssportclay]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lcrim /img/forum/go_quote.gif I don't know where to start. The fact is that the price of all the parts necessary to replace the Technics 12xx tonearm is around $265 not $65 . If you factor into that figure the economies of scale in producing millions of those world wide as opposed to OL's maybe thousands of units all told, you can see that the $1100 Origin Live cost must be highly inflated to be profitable. The fact is that the Technics tonearm is rated @ 12 gms mass which is usually categorized as medium while the Rega 250 at 11 gms. mass is somehow rated completely different. The fact is that the Rega 250 tonearm bearings have 7X the friction of the double gimbal Technics 12xx tonearm is highly significant, not to be trivialized. The fact is that DJ cartridges such as the Ortofon Concorde are not high compliance but rather low compliance running at excessively high downforces that would swamp any attempt to deal with resonance through fluid damping. The fact is that SME, Basis Vector and Triplanar tonearms utilize fluid damping which would certainly argue for its usefulness. The use of fluid damping is obviously not well understood by some on this board. The fact is that even the OP is using a modern moving coil cartridge (AT OC-9) w/ the damped Technics arm and seems satisfied. There are many other such examples that can be found on boards like the AA vinyl board. The only valid criticism of the Technics arm is the quality of the wiring which was improved in the M5G series and can be updated to Cardas Litz through a reasonably priced KAB mod. Larry

No one is saying that the stock tonearm cannot be improved. Many happy people are using them on their Technics turntables. Just don't fantasize that a KABUSA modified Technics 1200 is going to sound as good as decks like the VPI Scout and Michell Tecnodec. In order for this to happen the stock tonearm has to go. With the simple installation of an upgraded Rega 250 and a KABUSA power supply,the Technics 1200 MKII will actually compete with those decks.

 

[memepool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lcrim /img/forum/go_quote.gif The fact is that the price of all the parts necessary to replace the Technics 12xx tonearm is around $265 not $65 . If you factor into that figure the economies of scale in producing millions of those world wide as opposed to OL's maybe thousands of units all told, you can see that the $1100 Origin Live cost must be highly inflated to be profitable.

I don't think cost is that much of an indicator, as you say, since all turntable related components are expensive per se these days given the fact it's no longer a mass market as it was in the '70s.

The Technics is a 30+ year old design which is actually cheaper than it was when it came out although the same could be said of the Rega RB-250/300 with respect to inflation. The Rega's are mass produced on a smaller scale for sure and the external finish isn't up to the same standards as the Technics on the basic models but the designs are what is important and in this respect the Rega is just a more modern better conceived design.


Quote:

Originally Posted by lcrim /img/forum/go_quote.gif The fact is that the Technics tonearm is rated @ 12 gms mass which is usually categorized as medium while the Rega 250 at 11 gms. mass is somehow rated completely different. The fact is that the Rega 250 tonearm bearings have 7X the friction of the double gimbal Technics 12xx tonearm is highly significant, not to be trivialized.

You are missing the wood for the trees here. It's the whole design of the arm not the individual components which are the key to understanding why the Rega outperformed every budget tonearm of the day and continues to do so. In fact the way you are conceptualising the design in terms of individual components is archaic and symptomatic of this confusion.

Until the 1980s tonearm design was all about attempts to address design issues with extremes of mass and compliance, bejewelled bearings and complex counterweight arrangements. See here for a much better technical explanation than I could write

The designs of Rega and SME changed all this but it came a little too late for the major Japanese manufacturers like Matsu****a who had already moved onto digital. This is all pretty widely accepted history and unless you havn't been listening to vinyl since the mid 1970s it's pretty difficult to have not noticed that the Rega tonearm design dominates the market at the lower end for this reason.


Quote:

Originally Posted by lcrim /img/forum/go_quote.gif The fact is that DJ cartridges such as the Ortofon Concorde are not high compliance but rather low compliance running at excessively high downforces that would swamp any attempt to deal with resonance through fluid damping.

No you are being oversimplistic. Yes of course crude conically tipped DJ carts require high downforces to stay on the record in a club environment but these are not the carts that KABUSA are recommending to get the best out the Technics because that would be ignorant.

The best Concorde style carts are pretty rare these days and have fineline or eliptical stylii which are employed for transcribing records for use on DJ platforms like Final Scratch or Serato. These types of Concorde carts are all high compliance, see here

Resonant Frequency Evaluator

The compliance goes up with the quality of the diamond. The top of the line KAB customised Ortofon's ProS30/40, costing around 300-400USD, have a compliance of 25 uM/mN which would be really be best suited to an arm of 4-5gms like the SME3009 S2 improved. Controlling a cart like this with the Technics arm really requires fluid damping.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lcrim /img/forum/go_quote.gif The fact is that SME, Basis Vector and Triplanar tonearms utilize fluid damping which would certainly argue for its usefulness. The use of fluid damping is obviously not well understood by some on this board.

Yourself incuded it would appear. There is a bit of a gulf between customising a mid-fi '70s tonearm with a crude silicon trough and any of the designs you mention.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lcrim /img/forum/go_quote.gif The fact is that even the OP is using a modern moving coil cartridge (AT OC-9) w/ the damped Technics arm and seems satisfied.

The way he describes the AT sounding though leads one to surmise that it's sounding pretty coloured and there is large scope for improvement which is the point of this thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lcrim /img/forum/go_quote.gif The only valid criticism of the Technics arm is the quality of the wiring which was improved in the M5G series and can be updated to Cardas Litz through a reasonably priced KAB mod.

Did you read this thread before replying? http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f7/tec...grades-366309/
There have been valid criticisms of the Technics SL1200MK2 arm since the 1970s backed up with accelerometer analysis by eminent journalists like Martin Coloms (HFN/Stereophile).

Technics have not addressed these criticisms because it wasn't necessary for the professional market the SL1200 deck was selling into where it's robustness was the most important factor. They sold the SL120 version for audiophiles and when enough audiophiles stopped buying records they stopped making it.

Of course rewiring the stock Technics arm with better quality wire will make it sound better, as it will with any poorly wired tonearm Rega RB250 included,
but it won't make it sound any less coloured and neither will basic silicon damping.

The only reason I can see to spend this much money on an old design like the Technics stock arm is nostalgia. Common sense dictates that if a better sounding solution can be had for the same or less money, in the shape of the universally acclaimed Rega RB-250, then that's the most logical upgrade.

 

[Publius]

I'm not going to rehash the whole Technics arm measurement debate, but I will say that I have an OC9 mounted on a stock 1200 arm and it sounds quite good to me. Whatever toppiness exists, doesn't show up on my Etys (!).

 

[memepool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Publius /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm not going to rehash the whole Technics arm measurement debate, but I will say that I have an OC9 mounted on a stock 1200 arm and it sounds quite good to me. Whatever toppiness exists, doesn't show up on my Etys (!).

I don't think there can be any argument about the Technics SL1200MK2 stock arm being measurably inferior to most modern arms.

However lots of people still listen to older arms like the SME 3009 which, although obviously superior to the Technics arm, is still nowhere near as accurate as the current generation series IV or V or indeed the humble Rega RB-250.

That doesn't mean however you can't have a lot of fun with vintage kit. A lot of this comes down to personal taste and if you like the sound of a vintage tonearm, if it moves you musically and you can balance out the colouration in the context of your system then why not?

Personally I went through several vintage arms, an SME 3009, a series III and various Linns before settling on Origin Live's heavily modded Rega. All the other arms did certain things well, were great with some types of music ...etc, but on balance the Rega was just in a different class, just so much more accurate and revealing as the measurements bear out.

For the money combining the Technics SL1200 with the RB250 has to be one of the most amazing analogue bargains going and splurging cash on the stock arm is just such a waste.