Hadcock tonearm OR ?

Hi

Looking for a good unipivot tonearm how good our the Hadcocks is the 228 or 242 the one to go for?

Or can you recommend me other alternatives i should look at.

Thanks

 

Longer has to be better (within reason) as you have the potential for lower distortion.

I can recommend alternatives but not unipivots as I'm not a fan.

If you want a vintage arm of similarly low mass, the original Mission 774 is superb. Someone should reintroduce it!

 

I set up loads of Hadcock 228's and grew to loathe them as every one fell apart and needed re-assembling.....

These days, the Roksan Nima looks good, but prices are rising. I keep forgetting, but the NAS AceSpace arm may be affordable and they're very VERY good too and should be available with a "universal" fitting.

 

I've been running a 242 Export for close on a year now and can confirm that the 'fall apart if you so much as look at them' days are over.

Due to the unipivot actually being a point and four bearings they are nowhere near as 'wibbly-wobbly' (technical term) as the Nima and don't really feel like a uni in use.

Compared to the NAS they are much more minimal in build terms and I actually believe quite elegant in their simplicity.

That said, set-up is a little fiddly due to a number of parameters not being completely divorced from others eg move the headshell fore & aft and you'll most likely have to re-level the headshell with the pivot an so on.

Once set-up though they do stay that way and allow you to just get on and play the music.

Having said all of that I'm not entirely convinced I'm going to keep this one - so if the right offer came along...