HI all,
It's coming up to a year since I went from an SL1200MKII with a load of mods to an SL1200G now and I'm still over the moon with the upgrade. Playing vinyl is more of a joy on this deck than anything I've ever owned before it and I wouldn't even be thinking about touching it but for one thing - SIBILANCE!
I started noticing it more than usual when I put a SoundSmith Carmen cartridge on the deck and it started to annoy me pretty quickly, even though the cart was definitely an upgrade over my old Dynavector DV20X2L (for this arm at least). At first I suspected it was the cartridge itself but having checked alignment, anti-skate, VTA, azimuth 100 times and re-fitted the DV and tried a couple of other carts, the sibilance seems to be there all of the time, so my suspicions have now turned to the arm. Reading around it does seem that the standard arm is the weakest link from what I can gather, so I am now toying with the idea of replacing it... So I'm wondering whether anyone has any experience they can share of having upgraded the arm on their 1200G?
In terms of choice, I guess I'm too late for a Jelco, so I'm weighing up between a Timestep T-609 or a Funk Firm FX3D. I have to admit that I love the look of the Timestep and I'm a little hesitant about the Funk with it being a straight arm which I think looks a bit out of place on a Techie, but does anyone have any experience of either that they can share, or indeed have any others they think I should consider?
On the other hand, would simply fitting a fluid arm damper to the existing arm sort out my sibilance issues?