Our house isn't particularly large, so it is hard to find room for all the audio equipment, particularly the multiple amplifiers while having room for the television which sits on a separate stand... so I'd been putting it off. But no longer...
The "bit of work" is a new tonearm for the Teres. I'd bought a T3Pro tonearm to replace the old Origin Live'd RB250 arm that I'd used for so long. It's a parallel tracking tonearm as opposed to the more usual tangential tracking arm that you usually find on turntables, mainly because inner groove distortion is something I find particularly unpleasant.
There is quite a lot of setup involved, I guess that is the case for any tonearm, but there a few more adjustments than usual to be made. I've set it up first with a fairly inexpensive cartridge, the Nagaoka MP-100, in case any mistakes were made in the process - thankfully the cartridge seems to have come through unscathed!
Here's how it looks so far...
And a closer up of the wand...
While I have sound and what appears to be reliable tracking, there still seems to be a fair way to go with optimisation. Sound is a bit sibilant and very much reminiscent of what I consider in my relatively limited experience to be a typical "moving magnet" cartridge sound. It may well be user error, but we'll see...
Here's a good thing... the actual arm itself is essentially silent - this is different from any other air bearing arm I've encountered, which normally have a very audible hissing sound. The air pump itself is designed for aquarium use, and while far from silent should not be too hard to quiet down in an appropriate foam-lined box.
So lots of work still to do on the turntable, more tweaking and alignment, more solid mountings for various things, but at least it can play now!
