One on eBay right now
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?m...2F162931175160
Location: KY - Scotland
Posts: 5,470
I'm Mike.
One on eBay right now
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?m...2F162931175160
Not so.
The built in fluid damping is there for use with low compliance cartridges. The fluid not only damps, but also provides a resisting load for the stylus to work against according to the viscosity and paddle chosen, thereby allowing the cantilever suspension to articulate properly and achieve the necessary excursion. The 774 works extremely well with low compliance MC's and Deccas. Without the damping in use it will of course cater to high compliance cartridges too, due to the low mass armtube.
If the damping was applied to that extent and where it is most effective, I might agree with you. Where is Max Townshend when he is needed?
I've been using Mission 774 tonearms for nearly forty years. Other arms have come and gone, but the Mission remains in use. It has given excellent results with a huge range of cartridges, with compliances ranging from 10cu to 50cu, damping applied as appropriate. The sound quality is always excellent.
I still have three 774 arms.
Have to agree, used mine with a range of MC’s and a few MM’s and it’s always sounded excellent.
“Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of fuel. Sentimental people call it inspiration, but what they really mean is fuel. I have always needed fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio”
Hunter S Thompson
“Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of fuel. Sentimental people call it inspiration, but what they really mean is fuel. I have always needed fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio”
Hunter S Thompson
Huh. Can never have a tonearm thread here without the bloody Mission 774 mafia turning up in numbers ....
Tom (montesquieu) suggested the use of an Audio Technica AT 1005 arm. Mike Greenwood of this parish has one for sale should you be interested: http://theartofsound.net/forum/showt...57-AT-1005-arm.
I'm slightly amused by the notion that the arm ought to be visually in keeping with the turntable. Aesthetics aside (which I can, and do, understand and appreciate), I would have thought it was more important to use an arm which brought out the best in the cartridge you are using, despite appearence.
Barry
It's more than aesthetics I think. Idler turntables are of an era that had a sound, and for me I think it's important to follow the philosophy through which means low compliance, heavy arms, probably valve phonostages.
Aside from that I'd take a fettled 1005 over most Rega derivatives any day at least for the sort of lower compliance cartridges I like to use. For my sort of cartridge preferences it probably also betters an SME 3009 SII Improved (though not necessarily an earlier one). The good news is it's also cheaper.
The PU7 for all it's a modern arm also fits this 'retro' scenario in looks as well as function, in the form of higher mass and low compliance friendliness (as does my own Ikeda arm).