Any of these tonearms decent?

[tapid]

Won the Mayware at £205, now what high compliance cart do I buy to match it with my 401? Scratches head.

Nice one Mike, not too far off with my price prognosis then lol. Well he seemed a decent seller and he s thrown in an arcam cart 77 ?, so who knows you might be happy with that.
Hope it goes well otherwise I can see Marco and I being off the Christmas card list for this year !

[tapid]

I always thought Deccas preferred a wee bit of mass (as well as effective damping), Brian? The Mayware's super-light, I believe, although I've never used one. Is it a respected pairing in Decca circles, then?

I ask because I wouldn't know.

Marco.

Yeah defo, seen quite a few examples on the Lenco site, gl 75, Decca/ mayware. One guy claimed here a few years back that in 35 years of listening to Decca carts the mayware was best combo he d heard
I I. have the upgraded counterweight on mine which I know slightly defeats the purpose of a light arm, but it worked well for me and saves a bit on the aggro on set up. Maybe something for mike to think about ?

[Mikeandvan]

Nice one Mike, not too far off with my price prognosis then lol. Well he seemed a decent seller and he s thrown in an arcam cart 77 ?, so who knows you might be happy with that.
Hope it goes well otherwise I can see Marco and I being off the Christmas card list for this year !

Cheers, there seems to be quite a few well respected and popular high compliance carts on the market, so I'll have quite a selection to choose from, that Arcam cart is probably old and worn I'm guessing, never know.

[Lurch]

Cheers, there seems to be quite a few well respected and popular high compliance carts on the market, so I'll have quite a selection to choose from, that Arcam cart is probably old and worn I'm guessing, never know.

I like A&R 77 carts, let me know what he gives you, Red = C77 Blue = E77 & Black = P77. As for the body, if it has a gold can then it's a regular cart, if the can is Black then it's an Mg so metal as opposed to a plastic body.
Am currently running a P77Mg on my Ariston RD80SL in my 80s rig.

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[Mikeandvan]

I like A&R 77 carts, let me know what he gives you, Red = C77 Blue = E77 & Black = P77. As for the body, if it has a gold can then it's a regular cart, if the can is Black then it's an Mg so metal as opposed to a plastic body.
Am currently running a P77Mg on my Ariston RD80SL in my 80s rig.

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Its a C77 mg, very old by now, not expecting much from it, I guess replacement carts aren't available anymore.

[Lurch]

The C77 is surpringly good for a conical cart. E & P styluses do show up from time to time on ebay, my P77 was a NOS stylus I grabbed from someone who didn't know what he had (muppet had it on ebay for £15 free p&p) had only been on 2 or 3 mins, hit the BIN button then started smiling and giggling.

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[Marco]

It doesn't have to be high compliance. You could just as easily use a lowish compliance MC like the Denon DL-103. You'd need to use a head amp or SUT though and adjust the arm's fluid damping to suit.

Mmm... Ok, firstly as I've said, I know next to fook all about Deccas or Mayware arms, so will gladly bow to the knowledge of those here who know far more than me in that area.

However, I do know the DL-103 inside out and back to front, and sorry, Geoff, I'd have to strongly disagree that it would work *optimally* in any low-mass tonearm. Quite simply, considerable experience of using the Denon for many years, in both light and heavy arms, completely contradicts what you've said.

The only way a 103 would have a chance of working properly in such an arm would be if you added about 13g to its headshell, and balanced it out at the other end, but then that would defeat the point of having a Mayware, and fly in the face of its design principles.

So for me, either grab a Decca, as it seems that's a top combo, or fit a quality low to medium-compliance MM or MC to the Mayware, as that will almost certainly be the best route to quality sound.

Nice one on winning the Mayware, btw, Mike. I'm sure that with the right cartridge it'll form a great combination with your 401!

Marco.

[shane]

The nice thing about the Mayware is that you can vary the effective mass. If you want to use a low compliance cart, slide the rider weight right up behind the head shell and set the VTF by adjusting the main counterweight. I ran mine quite happily with a Denon 304 without any damping. Worked a treat.

[Marco]

Hi Shane,

Glad it worked for you, and although what you say about the rider may be true, I'm a great believer in tonearms being 'one-trick ponies', in that they're specifically designed to *optimise* the use of one type of cartridge (they may work ok with others, but optimise is quite a different matter), rather than being a 'jack of all trades', as the relationship between and arm and cartridge is such a finely balanced and critical thing to get right.

In that respect, what you've described with the Mayware, in terms of its claimed efficacy with low-compliance cartridges, is a compromise... Personally, I don't entertain those unless there's no other option, and so Mike shouldn't either, and choose a cartridge instead that his arm was designed to partner - and almost certainly, that's low to medium-compliance cartridges.

Furthermore, a DL-304 is a different beast from a DL-103, and has high compliance, so I'm not surprised that it worked well on the Mayware

Marco.

[AlasdairB]

Dear Marco,
I don't know what you have against Covid vaccination. Just for the record I like your views on hifi but you are wrong about vaccination. If you really want to debate this I suggest you do it elsewhere.
Stay healthy and keep enjoying music,
Alasdair