Headshell mass.

[GeoffreyW]

I've had my Planar 3, R200 deck from new, and read all sorts of tuning tips over the years, and when I finally bought a cartridge scale, I thought I'd play around a bit. I found, in my Audio Man-Drawer, a tin of assorted nuts and bolts, and placed a nut weighing around 3g onto the headshell, did a reset on the tracking weight, to 1.76g, and found quite an improvement.

There's more definition to the music, more information, greater definition to the music, much the same as the difference between the old Planar 2 and 3 decks, so I'm having to re-listen to my vinyl.... again. I tried a slightly lighter weight, but lost something, so went back to the heavier weight. I'd appreciate any advice as to any other tweaks, but for the moment I'm enjoying the music.

Trouble is, it's got me teetering on the brink of Upgraditis again, either for a new deck, or an RB300 then a motor upgrade. Dammit.

 

[Al ears]

To be honest if you can alter the sound by sticking a weight on the headshell and re-balancing would indicate to me you have the wrong cartridge fitted or there is a problem with the cartridge. But hey, if it works for you... *biggrin*

 

[CJSF]

As far as I am concerned, its all part of cartridge/arm tuning. I have a copper mass weight between cartridge and headshell, if memory serves it is 5grms? I spent much time swapping these purpose made weights around, there are 3 in the set two copper and one aluninum made by the arm manufacturer.

If you serch all my posts, you will get an idea of how much can be done to get the best from your Rega. The important thing for me was and still is, small changes on their own may not be to significant but as a whole its becomes very worth while.

CJSF

 

[CJSF]

Jeff at AudioMods has gone into the cartrige/tone arm matching in some detail. When I was down there he showed me some graphes, very interesting they were to, paticularly those relating to SME arms . . . *nea*

Changing the cartrige/arm mass is totaly practical and desirable as you have found it can give a lot to the detail and sound presented. You are matching arm resonances to cartrige mass, the catridge suspention will give you the clue, soft suspention, the cartige is intended for light arms making the cartrige less universal IMHO.

Have a look on AudioMode web site, I think the headshell mass weights are shown there. I put 3 tiny (tiny, tiny) blobs of blutack on thetop of the headshell (one each on the bolt tops and one at the back) I then was able to swap around quickly. A point worth making, the only way to get things spot on everytime as you test anything relating to arm/cartridge is ballancing with a 'proper set of digital scales' . . . 'that will do' is simply not good enough, sorry but that is the fact IMHO. The reason for this is that you have an exact referance point, I always start from this referance and them move away 'using my ears', knowing I can always come back if I get confused . . . it hapens often!

I took things a lot further as you will see from my old posts. A big plus was my DIY cartridge/arm isolation bridge, requires an arm with VTA adjustment, shims or slider, to acomodate the extra hight of the bridge. There were pictures of most of my TT mods on the old style forum, not sure if they have been carried over?

CJSF

 

[GeoffreyW]

I re-weighed the nut, and it was 2.1g, not 3, sorry.

The cartridge is a Nagaoka 110, fitted a few months ago, which was, in itself, an improvement over my knackered 10x4, and further playing about is on the cards, plus a visit to Audiogon and Vinylengine.

 

[CJSF]

I re-weighed the nut, and it was 2.1g, not 3, sorry.

The cartridge is a Nagaoka 110, fitted a few months ago, which was, in itself, an improvement over my knackered 10x4, and further playing about is on the cards, plus a visit to Audiogon and Vinylengine.

There is much you can do to a TT Geoffrey, some pricy, some fairly economic in terms of 'bang for your buck', then there are the freebies if you are handy, beware of the take your money gobaldy-**** offerings, or sideways moves, there are many?

To go over all what I have done would take much time and space, click on my 'user name' and trace my posts back over the past 36 months or so, you will get some inspiration . . . or be totaly put off according to some of the feed back?

Single mindedness, dedication, love of you hifi and music will help . . . the end result was worth it . . . *preved*

CJSF