RickeyM
08-01-2015, 15:42
Thanks to an excellent tutorial by member Qwin, I modded the tonearm on my SL-1200 MK2. I knew I wouldn't be able to spring for a nice aftermarket arm for a while and the cost for the parts to do a Carbon Fiber mod to the Techie isn't too much at all.
I measured the distance from the stylus to the end of the stock tonearm and used that as a guide, cutting the tubes just a bit long allowing for the final trim-up to make it just right. One surprise I found was the generic type headshell I found on eBay was a good bit lighter than the stock headshell. The counterweight couldn't be adjusted down enough to apply enough force to keep the stylus on the album :doh: This necessitated a temp solution as seen in the pics ;) Not to worry, as artistic as my solution might look, a proper 3-gram weight has been ordered from KAB.
The "highlights" in the Carbon Fiber stand out much more under the flash, it doesn't look near as "showy" under regular light. I gotta say I like what I'm hearing from the upgrade. I get surprised on certain songs when I hear some detail or low level sounds that I hadn't heard before. Everything now stands out more clearly. All this from a humble AT120e cart. I don't expect that just replacing the stock tube with a carbon fiber/aluminum one is going to match the improvement you get from a good aftermarket arm but it does work noticeably better than stock. For less than the cost of an arm board, this is a very nice mod. Time to do a little dusting tho' :D
Thanks for the inspiration Ken :cool:
http://natedigiddy.smugmug.com/ComponentMods/SL-1200Mk2/i-8rGGzPd/0/L/104_1308-L.jpg
http://natedigiddy.smugmug.com/ComponentMods/SL-1200Mk2/i-f5mJHGJ/0/L/104_1309-L.jpg
I measured the distance from the stylus to the end of the stock tonearm and used that as a guide, cutting the tubes just a bit long allowing for the final trim-up to make it just right. One surprise I found was the generic type headshell I found on eBay was a good bit lighter than the stock headshell. The counterweight couldn't be adjusted down enough to apply enough force to keep the stylus on the album :doh: This necessitated a temp solution as seen in the pics ;) Not to worry, as artistic as my solution might look, a proper 3-gram weight has been ordered from KAB.
The "highlights" in the Carbon Fiber stand out much more under the flash, it doesn't look near as "showy" under regular light. I gotta say I like what I'm hearing from the upgrade. I get surprised on certain songs when I hear some detail or low level sounds that I hadn't heard before. Everything now stands out more clearly. All this from a humble AT120e cart. I don't expect that just replacing the stock tube with a carbon fiber/aluminum one is going to match the improvement you get from a good aftermarket arm but it does work noticeably better than stock. For less than the cost of an arm board, this is a very nice mod. Time to do a little dusting tho' :D
Thanks for the inspiration Ken :cool:
http://natedigiddy.smugmug.com/ComponentMods/SL-1200Mk2/i-8rGGzPd/0/L/104_1308-L.jpg
http://natedigiddy.smugmug.com/ComponentMods/SL-1200Mk2/i-f5mJHGJ/0/L/104_1309-L.jpg