Hi all
I know a few on here like turntables, plus they like a bit off messing about with them, as after all you can mess about with turntables, arms, etc, etc. It can be fun, but also frustrating at times.
Anyway i have for a while fancied having 2 different tonearms, and cartridges on the same deck. Why?, well because they can sound very different, and you can use one for certain albums, etc.
When i had the tron phono stage, this opened up the idea as it has 2 separate turntable inputs. The only problem was it went as it just didn’t work with my cartridge, due to loading, as the tron is fixed.
Then i went back to the superline as i could make my own loading plugs, etc.
Anyway once again i now have a phono amp that has more than one input, in fact it has 4, plus it has lots off different loading settings, so once again i looked into sorting out a second tonearm set up.
Obviously getting a tonearm, and cartridge is easy, but mounting the tonearm, well thats a completely different problem to overcome.
There are a few standalone tonearm pods you can arrange to get made to your request, but they are quite expensive, and i wanted to keep the cost down on this, so i decided to make my own.
With that i got the tape measure out, and off down the shed for a few hours.
A piece off 63mm copper pipe.
Some lead to melt down.
Some plumbing waste, and stack fitting.
This is the result.
Very happy with my effort, yes it could be a more polished product, but considering the time spent, and zero cost involved as everything i had from previous plumbing works, then i have to say its turned out better than i could have hoped.
Its more than half full off lead, so its heavy, and certainly won’t move unless you want to move it.
The feet are height adjustable, so i can get it level.
Plus i have the built in height adjustment on the arm to fine tune vta, and worked that from a middle setting to give me adjustment both ways once i fit the cartridge.
As for cartridge then i got a low hours secondhand Ortofon windfeld for a nice price, and picked up the Michell tecnoarm also for a nice price secondhand.
Just got to print off a set up template for the cartridge and set the tonearm to spindle distance, and will be all set to go.
Cheers dunc