Spacedeck arms conundrum

You mean you don't believe everything you read in adverstising blurb???

 

ok, here's my tuppence

NAS decks are pretty fine, I ran a mentor for 10 years no probs....great sounding....but needed good isolation

But the arms are not great imho, the weak link in NAS deffo.

 

uh ... you serious?

 

Do you think spacedecks work best on dedicated wall shelves, such as a Target one? I seem to remember hearing Tom Fletcher say that the best place to put one is on a solid wooden table.

I heard that the recent upgrades to the Space arm has improved it a lot. It's probably very good for the price.

 

I've done loads of experimenting with different supports for my Spacedeck, ranging from my old Audiotech table (from my LP12 & Gyro days) to Q/Spire shelving of various heights. I also bought a few granite chopping boards from Asda to use as mass-damping for the tables.

Best results cam from the Quadraspire shelf, but kept as low as possible ie using just 2 'boards' so the TT sits around a foot from the floor. I loaded the lower shelf, to add mass, with a couple of the chopping boards. This seems to help focus and musical flow the best. The worst was the bare Audiotech with the spiked top board - it was awful.

At the moment mine's sat around 4' off the floor on a 5-tier Q/Spire rack due to having a 2 yr old running around the place. The TT's not, as a result, sounding as good as it could do.

Tom Fletcher's advice is definitely sound - I've realised this through all the experimenting I've done.

 

Interesting. But why is closer to the ground better than higher up?

 

I had my mentor on a wooden shelf (ikea lack, doubled up and reinforced), it sounded better on that than on any 'hifi' stand. Its a great deck...in fact Tom makes the best bearings in the biz imho....and high mass decks are the very finest (properly designed and isolated of course)

NAS arms are deffo not up to the standard of the decks (opinion based on use....), while nicely made, they just sound too de focussed and soft to my ears, I ran variously a space arm, anna and alien (one of the few....) and none satisfied, so I went the zeta//mechanic//triplanar/graham route.....and Decca London International (which sounded as soft and diffuse as a puff of smoke)

 

Zoiks! Good question.

Dunno really - I'm possibly thinking (from a clueless muso's p.o.v) that there's less resonance in a lower, smaller structure. There's also more rigidity, less chance for it to sway around in the breeze as it were. All I'll say is it's simply better (where have we heard that before?)

As to the NAS arms - I can only comment on my own experiences but I have to say that over the OL-modded RB250 my Spacedeck wore first time out, the Spacearm blew it into next week nd beyond. Not one single downside could I detect over the Rega arm. If folk are saying there is better to be had, for similar money then I'm only too prepared to be (un?)pleasantly surprised.

 

Hello again.

Apologies for the silence, have been travelling more than I'd like.
Internet on planes is still too expensive...

Thank you for all your comments and suggestions.
The Morch seems like a good idea but as I have a Rega armboard on my Spacedeck I am concerned about this collet business...
(Joel does this come from NAS or HH Morch?)

Still, I will definitely keep an eye out on audiogon and epay. I believe for the koetsu i need a blue armtube, right?

The hadcock arm could be an option. Does it fit a rega board?
It seems a bit flimsy (as Joel pointed out) and I read that it is very difficult to align the arm properly given the lack of space in the cartridge mounting holes... anyone care to comment on this?

On the new spacedeck... is this the 12" deck Tom Fletcher brought out? If it is I saw/heard it at Walrus and it sounded very nice indeed... can't really compare to my own Spacedeck (a late version from earlier this year) as the systems are totally different.

Finally, I have experimented a bit with supports for my spacedeck and currently my preferred setup is having the deck on top of the orignal base (the fake marble thingie) and that on top of a Base Isolation platform. The whole thing is in turn on top of a solid unit from Ikea about 50cms from the floor. It is pretty sturdy. The Base isolation platform focused the sound considerably and gave the music a bit more rythm... so it stayed.

Cheers,
Jack

 

No you would need a new arm pod which is about £75 IIRC.

The cartridge mounting holes are jsut that, holes rather than slots. To align the cart you move the headshell forward and backwards on the arm tube.

It is easy peasy.

 

And on the Space you have the added flexibility of being able to move the arm pod forward and back for some extra adjustment.

 

No need with the Hadcock though as it comes with a pivot to spindle measurer, do that once and forget about it.

Was much easier to do than any other arm mainly for that reason.

 

assuming your cantilever is dead staright yes, they aren't always though,

 

True but then there is a the adjustment in the headshell for that final bit.

 

true

 

I like Hadcocks, but arms that you have to do the move it back n forth annoy me, what's wrong with bloody slots for gods sake.

 

I much prefer it now. Setting up my deck on my bedroom system seemed so much more fiddly with the slots.

 

Nah, slots man. Anything else is for babbies

 

Slots and holes are for girlie-men



Setup with the current cart, which replaced a DV17 mkII. THe lack of holes or anything to calibrate with is disconcerting at first.



Pivot to spindle measurement is easy. Pivot point is at the crown.