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Thread: FR64s with an Ortofon Cadenza Bronze

  1. #1
    Join Date: Jul 2012

    Location: Wimborne

    Posts: 701
    I'm Alex.

    Default FR64s with an Ortofon Cadenza Bronze

    I’m considering trying one of these highly praised tonearms. Would it be a terrible idea for my cartridge? My thinking is - replace the headshell with a lightweight one, hence reducing the effective mass significantly. Or should I just give it up as a bad idea?

  2. #2
    Join Date: Apr 2009

    Location: Near Saffron Walden, Essex

    Posts: 7,087
    I'm Dave.

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    Personally, I'd give up the Bronze in favour of the FR-64S, IMO one of the best arms ever made.

    I don't think you will have any trouble with the FR-64S combination, just don't use their huge cube headshell.

  3. #3
    Join Date: Jan 2009

    Location: Norwich

    Posts: 2,814
    I'm Hugo.

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    If you can find a lightweight Fidelity Research RS-121 headshell, these work rather well on the end of my FR-64S with my KontrapunktB and would no doubt be fine with a Cadenza too.

  4. #4
    Join Date: Aug 2016

    Location: Suffolk

    Posts: 49
    I'm Charlie.

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    The 64fx is not such high mass so might be a better bet, still has the same high build quality. Even the fx is hardly a light-weight though!
    Mine sounds lovely in combination with a DL103r.

  5. #5
    montesquieu Guest

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    It's surprisingly tolerant of cartridges that are more medium compliance - the Cadenzas are medium-low compliance and as suggested above by Hugo (who has lots of experience in these things), with a lighter headshell you should be fine. Though I suspect just having such a wonderful arm will ultimately tempt you to the dark side of low compliance - SPUs and the like.

    Bring it down here if you like, my Ikeda arms are roughly around the same sort of effective mass.

  6. #6
    Join Date: Jul 2012

    Location: Wimborne

    Posts: 701
    I'm Alex.

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    Well the guy selling the arm seemed to get annoyed with me doing a bit of research so it’s not an option anymore. I’ve instead ordered one of the Ortofon arms fettled by Alfred Bokrand.

    Thanks for the offer Tom, I was actually going to PM you with a couple of questions. I’m no longer near to you though so popping over isn’t as easy! I better update my location....

  7. #7
    montesquieu Guest

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    Possibly for the best the youngest of these arms is 30-odd years old by now, the oldest over 40, and the performance varies hugely. I've heard a couple of really quite dodgy ones. They are insanely hard to service due to the complex/hard to disassemble/reassemble spring loading arrangement that sits directly atop the main bearing and needs to come off before it can be serviced, indeed the only person I know who will take one on is Angus (Phonomac), J7 won't touch them for example.

    If you get a good one the performance is very good indeed but it does seem to be a bit of a lottery.

    And yes Hull is rather further than Reading (or, indeed, Benson/Wallingford!).

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