Hello All,

As I mentioned in my Welcome post, I have recently purchased a Heybrook TT2 turntable. From my browsing through the Heybrook threads here, it seems to be a later model with cast aluminum subchassis, external TPS unit, and a laminated birch arm board that reaches not quite to the front of the table. It has a Rega RB300 arm with tungsten CW. The arm wires and cables seem to have been upgraded – there is what looks like Belden silver cable exiting the bottom of the arm shaft and going straight to some decent looking RCA plugs. There was a non-functioning Rega Elys cart on it, which has been tossed.

Overall it’s a little bit of a fixer-upper – in decent shape, but needs some cosmetic touch up of the black stain on the wood veneer (not sure how I’m going to make that bit look good again), and the external power supply is not giving any juice to the motor – there’s power into the TPS, but none coming out. It’s presently with the tech getting that fixed and the suspension tweaked. As it happens, the former Canadian importer of Heybrook is about a half hour drive from my house – Audio One in Toronto. Handy! So it’s in the right hands for servicing.

Well, I have a mental list of about a dozen questions about this deck, but I want to start with what is a good cartridge match for this table and arm combo? From what I’ve read here and elsewhere, the RB300 seems to be a good fit for the Heybrook....am I right in assuming that the arm is a keeper? If the affirmative, then I would like to stick with a MM cart for it, and have whittled my short list down to three brands and a few possible models from each that seem to be a good compliance match:

+ Grado Prestige Gold or Reference Platinum
+ Ortofon 2M Blue or Bronze
+ Goldring 1000 or 2000 series (there are so many submodels in these lines, I don’t know which to choose)

My sound character tastes make me lean toward the Grados for their reportedly warmer, more mellow sound. But not having heard one on a deck like this (suspended vs. unsuspended belt or DD), is the TT2 going to mellow out a Grado even more and be too much of a good thing? (FYI, I have never owned a suspended deck, only DD). Also, I have read that Grados will hum on a Heybrook – has anyone experienced this? Is there a fix?

I have listened to the Ortofons, but on modern unsuspended Pro-Ject decks, and they sounded rather analytical and forward to my ear, but certainly extremely detailed and lots of drive and pace. To be fair, I can't say how much of that character was due to the TT, the electronics, or the speakers (this was at a dealer showroom). So...would one of these actually work well on the Heybrook? Perhaps the TT2 mellowing out that characteristic? A nice balance, in other words?

Re. Goldring, there really is little written about them, other than the 2000's have a similar character to the 2M series, only better according to some. Anyone with any experience with the 1000's or 2000's on a TT2, please share your thoughts.

Many thanks in advance for the insight.

Best regards,
Svend