What was old is now new, is an old expression. A wooden unipivot is what Joe Grado brought to the market either late 50’s or early 60’s. There are many unipivots from the early days to now I think. My only experience with wood tonearms was a balsa wood tonearm on my Rabco SL-8E, and it made a several orders of magnitude enhancement of the sound. Wish I still had it TBH. My current tonearm does have silver wire, but I’ve never tried wood plus silver, might be worth a try. Majority of my newer cartridges are low compliance, only the older ones from the 70s and 80s are high compliance which on a “shorter” wooden would probably work but a Denton/Zu 103 needs a “heavier” arm as seen by the cartridge. You have an incredible channel, one of the few I regularly look at, aka almost everyday. Thank you for all your work and effect to help those seeking a better musical experience.
Wow, Bob you had a wonderful journey with tonearms and cartridges! Thank you for being a regular & sharing regularly with your posts, I think I have achieved my purpose to create a meeting place for like-minded audiophiles. ;).
I rewired my Linn Ittok arm tube with the wires in the centre of a foam core that fitted snuggly inside the tube. I did loosely twist the wires, but as I am using a moving coil cartridge its less of an issue and I have short interconnects so the overall capacitance is quite low. The anti skate mechanism was a nightmare to reassemble as I broke the fine wax string connected to a tiny spring....I love your pencil bearing, especially when I read all the hype about mega buck tone arms and their fancy bearings....radical!
It was my architect friend Charlie who had the pencil led idea back 20 yeas ago.. self-lubricating graphite bearing, the best bearing one can dream up for a tonearm.. ;:) And the best of all, it's so affordable. Sometimes we can go ultra high tech with ultra practical solutions.... although this is truly and extreme at that.
When u mentioned the difficulty of running the wires inside makes me think of how Japanese katana sheath is made where they split the finished piece down the centre then hollow each side to the exact shape of each half of the katana blade so that it’s an exact fit. Another way for the tonearm would be to auger a channel along the underside and place a veneer over the wires inside. Either way it would be a fun experiment for anyone liking woodwork. Good tip to take extreme care of the cartridge. I ‘ve found out the $$$ way how fragile cantilevers are! Now I tie down the arm just to move my TT. 🌞
Nice job with your tonearm, Janos. I rewired one of mine a while back. It’s an aluminum tube that I put some medical grade rubber tubing inside of to cut down on vibrations and resonances, and it thankfully fit like a glove. I also put a bit of cotton at each end of the tonearm and ran each wire through 4 separate plastic tubes and soldered them directly to the cables that go to my phono pre, which I hardwired for the most direct signal path possible. As you know, every little thing adds up. Looking forward to seeing how your tonearm upgrades work out. Thanks, Janos.
No, this will go back to the Rega in the cats room. When I built this arm, were almost no quality wooden commercial arms (rare as a white crow) - and that was 20 years ago. Nowdays there's quite a few...
best wood for counterweight would be iron wood is the most heaviest of all woods does not float but sinks. it is the most condensed word out of any wood what you could do with your side stabilisers is run a bit of thread through the hole and put a piece of threaded tubing and on the ends to put some nuts, this could hang down and would have natural balance just spot of glue in the hole so polyester thread doesn't move, more stable that way. but as I've told you before you need to have the mass of the pivot point platter level below the record surface. holding the tonearm wire probably be best to use some silicone sealant of adhesive. you can dry the wire with enamel coating in the oven at 70 degrees Celsius 25 minutes it will be a much harder coating as well.
Thank you for the tip on the enamel temperature drying! 👍👍Yeah, on my newer wooden arms the counterweight sinks quite below the record surface (actually, below the platter). More later... thanks! ; ✨✨
@@realworldaudio no not counterweight the pivot point the uni pivot point has to be below record surface level with the platter. ideally with a mass at that point as I indicated in my previous comments about it, still good to have the counterweight low down slang.
@@hoobsgroove Ah, ok! Yes, that's right. When pivot point is right at the level of the stylus tip riding in the groove, the angular distortion to to wobbling at thestylus tip is the lowest. Would need to elevate the cartridge though, or the arm, and that would compromise the arm's stability. Either way compromises... rests up to implementation to minimize them. ;
@@realworldaudio no your talking bs, you don't need to raise the cartridge" either, you raise the whole of the arm that is still kept at level to the record surface, no that isn't perfect point of the tip of the pivot to the stylist no you're wrong! the rockin angle has to be below level surface that's why you need a massive mass of weight around below the pivot point!! if it's vertical uni pevert, to counteract the mass of the arm. if the pivot point is at record surface or higher causes instability and jittering loss of sensation and makes the arm less sensitive. if a pivot point is below record level at a sloping angle to the tip of style at its correct rake angle of 92° makes it more sensitive increases lower frequencies, you can have the counterweight more into the centre and less of it, lowering the total mass even more of the arm above pivot point!! you need to read up on AR in the 60s did a paper on this exact subject, there's an article on the blackbird ram about the importance of this on his horizontal uni pivot the principles the same. if you get a little bit of square 12mm thick wood and glued it to wear the pivot is on the arm and stick the pivot to that wood, but you need a giant mass around the shaft of pivot or ball bearing, the best thing is what I suggested is a hydraulic valve lifter, it's quite heavy anyway and if you fill it with lead or even tungsten powder. will give you the mass you need for the total weight of the mass of the arm. it has to be greater or equivalent to the mass of the arm and counterweight combined and cartridge, around below its pivot point. I don't know why I have to keep repeating it not rocket science lol
@@hoobsgroove I truly appreciate your comments, and the extent you are going to share your ideas, which are really good and thought provoking! However, your descriptions are quite complex and sometimes hard to make any sense of the wording. They are probably as clear to you in your hear as my comments are to me in my head, but for the other person they often make less sense than what we expect. Would appreciate a little kindness and patience. There's only one of me, and 1700 of my subscribers commenting. Frankly, I would need x10 time I have to read and answer comments in depth. Me half-answering or not fully understanding your comments has all to do with my limited time resources. And of course, by the time I get to read / answer comments I'm not in top shape - I'm wasted and about to hit the rack. However, your comments are super valuable for others who read the comments (hopefully with a freshly rested mind), so just keep up! If I have a hard time getting some of your comments, odds are that others have such issues as well. Better to clarify. Thank you! ;)
