But please be mindful of forum rules regarding mentioning items for sale. Thanks.
Just sold in the last couple of days on the usual place. Hopefully all forum rules obeyed
Lucky owner of a lightly used Solstice, I’ve spent the whole weekend listening to vinyl, very impressed
Congratulations! I’m not a vinyl guy but I’d die to own this no fuss TT
I wonder if someone could check the weight of their cartridge. It supposed to be between 2.2 to 2.4g, if i set mine at 2.2g but when i check again over next couple of times i use it, it can jump to say 2.7g (my cartridge is putting on weight). Is there a fine adjustment because that counter weight just feels it goes into a groove or notch (there’s a lot of tolerance in that groove) and it goes adrift, it feels that there is no precision.
Do you mean the Tracking weight… of the Naim Equinox…?
Are you measuring the VTF with a scale that uses magnetic materials?
In other words, you are complaining that the counterweight will not stay set at your target VTF, correct? I agree, I have the same problem. The weight is designed to fit loosely, I have read, for “decoupling,” but as a result I have to check and adjust VTF often due to this drift. And yes, the “notch” is weird.
I had two years of these type of headaches. Tracking force and anti skate are flawed and that Clearaudio litz tonearm cable with its RCA’s is just poor. Still midrange fluidity was just lovely especially with a better cartridge than the Equinox. Enjoy the positives.
Yes, that “notch” is open to a lot of drift, thus out of tolerance. You can just see on the top picture it’s reading 2.25g but next time i a do a reading it could read up to 2.7g. No one (the mrs) dares to go near that turntable bar me LOL.
It’s the way the spring bearing on the arm tube secures the counterweight (and its thread). There’s decoupling and then there’s too loose. I felt the latter applied. Perplexing!
I used a Tigerpaw sKale for a while on my mk1 Aro, a right pain in the arse to adjust because if you didn’t centre the O rings in their grooves after moving it, it didn’t decouple properly and dynamics suffered but those O rings were rather tight on the shaft so you ended up overshooting each time you tried to adjust it.
The Naim weight with its internal thread and the pawl (if that’s the word) that engaged it also benefitted from a very slight backing off after turning it so that the pressure between them was minimised I surmised after a while.
Decoupling the counterweight was important on the original Aro and presumably is on this one.
Anyone tried a sKale on it?
SKale for ARO does not fit…
I have “solved” the sliding counterweight problem with a strip of Teflon plumbing tape- wrap a bit around the counterweight stub right on top of the spring bearing. This provides resistance and the weight will stay in place. I have lost the decoupling effect of the spring bearing but at least the counterweight does not move around willy-nilly…
LOL
And people wonder why they are now worth only £6,000. It’s most bizarre.
Agreed! A poor design by our all mighty Naim designers. The company that we support almost religiously can and do make poor decisions.
The tape does the job. Imo, living with an unstable counterweight is more silly than stabilizing it with a bit of Teflon…
Perhaps they wonder because they were not aware of these issues. I’ve not come across that particular problem before, although that may be entirely down to me.
I’d be really annoyed if my £16k TT needed a bit of PTFE tape jammed into it. Along with the other issues which have come to light, it is certainly enough to put me off any lingering thoughts of replacing my LP12 with a Solstice, much as I enjoyed the one very brief listen I’ve had and really liked the look of it. Even at £6k sadly.