Those 450 customers will be blissfully unaware their choice of replacement cartridge will be severely restricted until they come to a time when their cartridge needs replacing.
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Fair point.
A little harsh… IMO. I think we can reasonably think that Naim would not leave customers of such an expensive & unusual item, in the lurch, So replacement Equinox’s - or a similar, compatible cartridge - are very likely to be available.
The customers MAY not realise that their choice of a replacement may be restricted.
Although, do we really think that one of the present ARO ‘fettlers’ would not step up and assist in finding and fitting a suitable replacement, from AN Other manufacturer…?
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I’m sure someone will come up with a precision engineered spacer of appropriate thickness and weight.
Any good dealer or competent person can carry out the necessary tweaks if they are needed. I’m no Peter Swain and I found solutions.
Let’s face it Naim didn’t have any long term plans for the deck or they wouldn’t have limited production to 500or maybe Clearaudio only agreed to manufacturing the 500 sets. Only the privileged few know the answers.
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Hi everyone
I’ve been catching up on this thread, I’m not fully up to speed but getting there. I was not lucky enough to have been on the turntable design team and have all the history to catch up on.
I will also need to catch up with Roy (retired), find drawings, ask the Mech Eng team to do modelling and speak with machine shops, talk to the MD etc. Then we can see what we can do to help.
My current understanding is that Solstice owners would like a lighter counterweight. This will allow compatibility of MC cartridges that are lighter than the 14g Equinox cartridge; e.g. circa 8g.
Some notes from my experiments this morning:
- ARO 1 standard counterweight is 110g
- ARO 1 heavy counterweight is 138g
- ARO 2 counterweight is 134g
Using ARO 2 counterweight on the ARO 2
- Minimum 11g cartridge
- Nominal 14g cartridge
- Maximum 17g cartridge
Using ARO 1 counterweight on the ARO 2 (it fits)
- Minimum 8g cartridge
- Nominal 11g cartridge
- Maximum 14g cartridge
NOTE: Do not take any of the above with 100% absolute accuracy. I have been measuring weights and measuring forcing this morning to understand the issue.
Questions
- What cartridges do Solstice owners want to use - and their weight?
- How many Solstice users would buy a new counterweight?
I’m not promising anything, I am finding what the problem is and what solutions are realistic.
Cheers
Steve
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Now that’s what I call professional service Steve. Thank you
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To all those bashing the Solstice, i don’t care what’s said. One happy customer here, i’m loving mine with no regrets and i’m glad i bought it.
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Excellent work, here @110dB !!
Regarding weight - a quick survey of Dynavector carts - as a Dynavector owner & user.
Their weight range is -
- Lightest - 10X - 7,5g
- Heaviest - DRT XV-1S - 12.6 g
So… the heavier DV carts would work with the (standard) ARO2 counterweight, I think…?
Of the lighter DV’s, both the 10X and 20X would need a lighter ARO2 counterweight - the 20X is 9,8 g, But the 17DX at 11g shoud be OK with the existing one…?
(It might be argued that the DV10X & 20X are rather too ‘cheap’ for the Solstice, maybe…? But they can represent a lighter design of cartridge, here.)
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Thanks Steve, really useful to see Naim are listening I am very happy with the package as is but here are my answers
I have a rega aphelion 2 which is very light (6g) but would not necessarily expect that to be accomodated. My Lyra Delos is 7.3g and is a popular cart.
I wouls happily pay for a lighter counterweight.
One thig to be aware of though is that, because of the angled plate at the back of the headshell the pins of different carts can foul on it making correct overhang and alignment impossible without a spacer to lower the cart body.
Finally, do you know what the long term plans are for replacement equinox carts?
Thanks again
I am a happy Solstice owner and would buy a new counterweight. I haven’t really given this any thought but it’s nice do deal with it now rather than to get an unpleasant surprise in the future.
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Hi Steve,
My take on it is that if I’d bought a TT package advertised and sold as having a 8g cartridge then it should work with 8g cartridges.
I would not expect to have to pay more on top of the initial purchase for an additional counterweight in order to achieve this functionality.
There’s obviously been a mistake made somewhere with the weight specs and I think the onus is on Naim to fix it, not the customers who have already paid a high price for something which appears to not meet the published specs.
This is only my opinion and I dont own a Solstice so if anyone wants to buy an additional counterweight then go for it.
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It might be a good idea to start a new thread and link to it from this one?
A lot of Solstice users might not bother with a thread titled New from Naim…
And pleasantly ask that non- Solstice owners don’t reply, there’s a lot of second hand umbrage been taken here (which I haven’t been immune to myself!). 
.sjb
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I take my hat off to you Steve for listening:+1:
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Hi @Pedropete,
I was not fortunate enough to have been on the Solstice turntable design team and cannot comment on the 8g/14g confusion. I’m catching up on the situation. I may make some wrong assumptions …and be slow.
I’m hoping to be of help and need to understand everything and discuss with the mech engineers (they are doing modelling now), machine houses, MD etc.
I take your point, there was misinformation in the manual that has been the start of this confusion.
Thoughts
-
If the manual said the cart was 14g and can do +/-3g with adjustment would a customer pay for a special counterweight if they wanted to use an 8g cartridge or expect a free counterweight later?
-
If the manual said the cart was 8g (and it was) and can do +/-3g with adjustment would a customer pay for a special counterweight if they wanted to use a 14g cartridge or expect a free one later?
-
For the ARO 1, the extra heavy counterweight was an optional paid extra. The difference is there was not a mistake in the manual about the weight of the target cartridge. Solstice was designed as a complete package. The Solstice counterweight as far as I can measure is correct for the supplied cartridge.
Thanks @IanRobertM for the cart weight information!
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I think the biggest determination for me as to whether the fixes should be free are the availability of the equinox. If, when my equinox needs replacing Naim cannot offer me one then we have an issue as there are a limited number of options at that weight. If they can offer an equinox or equivalent then I would have no proble:paying to use a lighter cart if that is what I decide to do.
Having said that I was aware of the issue when I bought the deck, on the understanding from my dealer that Naim would be supplying carts for the foreseeable.
If I had bought at full price and made the reasonable assumption that the manual was correct I would probably be less happy
Happy to assist, if I can…
And - finally (?) -
Linn -
- Krystal - 7,0 g
- Kendo - 7,6 g
- Ekstatic - 7,0g
- Kandid - 5,7 g
What the Original ARO was designed around -
- Troika - 7,0 g
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PS. Found an outlier, from Ortofon -
- MC Diamond - 17.5 g
Probably not relevant as the standard ARO2 counterweight is good for 17g…?
The problem is really with lighter carts… 
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As a table, for ease of reference -
| Cartridge Weights | ||
|---|---|---|
| Make | Model | Mass (g) |
| Dynavector | DRT XV-1t | 12.0 |
| DRT XV-1s | 12.6 | |
| Te Kaitora Rua | 9.8 | |
| XX2 | 8.9 | |
| 17DX | 11.0 | |
| 20X | 9.8 | |
| 10X | 7.5 | |
| Linn | Krystal | 7.0 |
| Kendo | 7.6 | |
| Ekstatic | 7.0 | |
| Kandid | 5.7 | |
| Lyra | Delos | 7.3 |
| Kleos | 8.8 | |
| Ortofon | SPU | 13.0 |
| MC Quintet | 9.0 | |
| MC Cadenza | 10.7 | |
| MC Diamond | 17.5 | |
| MC Verisimo | 9.5 | |
| MC Winfield | 11.0 | |
| Rega | Aphelion | 6.0 |
| Apheta | 6.0 | |
| Ania Pro | 6.0 |
If anyone has any additions to this (or requests for), I can updated it, if it would be useful…
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Well done Ian, great job.
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