My name is Ken Willis. I live in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, USA. I found this forum as I was trying to find information about the Technics 1200 bearing Mike New made. I'm intending to add my name to the list of those who want one of these bearings so that he may come out of retirement: at least temporarily. My system consists of:
Technics 1200 MK2 table - rewired arm, Jim Howard (Applied Fidelity) bearing, Jim Howard delrin platter mat, DV 20XL cart, DIY SUT using re-purposed transformers from a Shure mixer, DIY Hot Rodded Hagerman Bugle phono pre with outboard power supply
DIY pre-amp using boards from ESP (Elliott Sound Products)
Pioneer M22 amp
Energy Veritas V1.8 speakers
Pioneer PD-95 cd player
Parasound DAC-1100 dac
I've also built a Transcendent Sound Masterpiece tubed pre-amp / headphone amp that I haven't been able to put into the main system yet (didn't think to measure the space where it was to go; and, being new to tubes, didn't understand how much heat comes off of those 300b tubes.
I used to be very active in the hobby, but work, family circumstances, and other issues have relegated this to a 'back burner' type endeavor most of the time.
I also have been making, for the last 10 years or so, an arc type cartridge alignment protractor. This is a hobby and, while I do make some pocket change with it, my primary purpose is not selling protractors but helping others with their alignment issues. Please feel free to contact me if you have issues trying to get your cart aligned and I will be happy to assist if I can. Just be aware that time constraints make it difficult sometimes to be as quick with a response as I'd like to be.