Internal damping of stock arm, experiences?

[Dubster68]

I would say when I had the original arm on heatshrink worked very well. The major help with this mod was the tone arm rewire straight from cart to RCA plugs. Then the arm was then packed with compressed foam ear plugs. I felt the bass notes tightened up and highs were very clear. . The next noticeable difference was the foam earplugs in the tone arm end stub. Packed tight and screwed back on that also damped the arm very well.

Here is the tone arm rewire kit. Very worthwhile with the standard arm.
tps://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/171140634010

ISOKINETIK ISOTONE CARDAS REWIRE KIT FOR TECHNICS TURNTABLES SL1200 SL1210 ETC

[vs_jk]

Thanks for that link! It looks like a nice cable to add to the turntable. Did it come with decent instructions on carrying out the upgrade?
Also, I like your idea of packing the arm with foam ear plugs.

BTW, you mentioned when you had the original tonearm. Which one do you use now? Would you mind describing how much of an improvement it was to switch tonearms?

[Dubster68]

Thanks for that link! It looks like a nice cable to add to the turntable. Did it come with decent instructions on carrying out the upgrade?
Also, I like your idea of packing the arm with foam ear plugs.

BTW, you mentioned when you had the original tonearm. Which one do you use now? Would you mind describing how much of an improvement it was to switch tonearms?

The kit comes with no instructions but there is loads of videos on you tube. It does come with silver solder and new pins. The only difficult part is resoldering the tags back to the tone arm plug(headshell end) Not hard just fiddly. If you need help just ask.

At a greater expense I moved up to a Jelco arm a SA-750. This made a very big improvement over the stock arm. It is more refined and is also oil damped. Saying that there is nothing wrong with the modified standard arm. I still have my modded arm here and even though I probably will never use it I have kept it as I like the look of it.

[Ianmac]

Progress to date.
Have finalised my Mk1 coaxial carbon fibre arm.
Its working extremely well, better channel separation, improved resolution on " busy" musical recordings, solid bass , clean treble & no adverse influence from the techie electronics and motordrive.
Im finding it difficult to explain how good 40 year old vinyl can sound on my tweaked 1200 ( PSU- 3 level, Bearing and arm)
The results are such that I will cease any attempts to try and improve the stock arm- (Im running with Silicon damper, Thick heatshrink sleeving and underslung counterweight)

I will move on to a Mk2 version where I can trim the weight of the headshell to match the precise measurements I now have for arm length and headshell size
The rigidy Im getting with the coaxial construction with cellfoam seem to be giving me the improved control of the headshell I was looking for.
From some of the posts I think it worthy of mention that cellfoam is quite different from earphone foam. Cellfoam adheres to contact surfaces "severely" and forms a structural bond, it also has the ability to attenuates low frequencies.
Ill finalise my Mk2 headshell dimensions and make another from the solid -- (someone hinted they had access to a CNC mill ?)
Will progress the Mk 2 with CF arriving this week and post photos in about two weeks time

[Dubster68]

Thanks for that link! It looks like a nice cable to add to the turntable. Did it come with decent instructions on carrying out the upgrade?
Also, I like your idea of packing the arm with foam ear plugs.

BTW, you mentioned when you had the original tonearm. Which one do you use now? Would you mind describing how much of an improvement it was to switch tonearms?

Progress to date.
Have finalised my Mk1 coaxial carbon fibre arm.
Its working extremely well, better channel separation, improved resolution on " busy" musical recordings, solid bass , clean treble & no adverse influence from the techie electronics and motordrive.
Im finding it difficult to explain how good 40 year old vinyl can sound on my tweaked 1200 ( PSU- 3 level, Bearing and arm)
The results are such that I will cease any attempts to try and improve the stock arm- (Im running with Silicon damper, Thick heatshrink sleeving and underslung counterweight)

I will move on to a Mk2 version where I can trim the weight of the headshell to match the precise measurements I now have for arm length and headshell size
The rigidy Im getting with the coaxial construction with cellfoam seem to be giving me the improved control of the headshell I was looking for.
From some of the posts I think it worthy of mention that cellfoam is quite different from earphone foam. Cellfoam adheres to contact surfaces "severely" and forms a structural bond, it also has the ability to attenuates low frequencies.
Ill finalise my Mk2 headshell dimensions and make another from the solid -- (someone hinted they had access to a CNC mill ?)
Will progress the Mk 2 with CF arriving this week and post photos in about two weeks time

Love your experimentation Ian and the advancement of the 1200. The best part is the mods are in reach cost wise of most people. Keep up the good work😃

[Ianmac]

Photo of my prototype arm and headshell.
Ill get the handle and silicon damper fitted and do an evaluation with /without damping.
I need to make a new paddle and arm mount as the new arm is 0.5 mm larger than the std techie, 10mm in lieu of 9.5mm[IMG][/IMG]

[Dubster68]

Photo of my prototype arm and headshell.
Ill get the handle and silicon damper fitted and do an evaluation with /without damping.
I need to make a new paddle and arm mount as the new arm is 0.5 mm larger than the std techie, 10mm in lieu of 9.5mm[IMG][/IMG]

That looks amazing Ian

[vs_jk]

Wow, agreed! Keep up the great work!

[mikeyb]

You should see his workshop 😉

Looks great Ian, I bet you could sell a few of those as it looks excellent!

[6L6]

I used the cotton when doing a re-wire of the stock arm, it worked beautifully, no complaints at all!