The Mike New Technics Bearing

[YNWaN]

Listening to a new Speakers Corner reissue of Lou Read's Transformer, which I bought myself for Christmas, I am struck by various improvements over the stock bearing. Firstly, the imaging is extraordinary (it wasn't bad before). Next, the edge definition of notes is quite literally palpable, and on top of that there's such delicacy to minor details. Lastly, I never noticed on New York Telephone Conversation that there were two voices!

All of these (rather well described) differences are ones that I have also noted when bearing noise is reduced.

[Mike_New]

Hi YNWaN,
I have only just joined this forum on the reccomendation of a happy bearing user, I did not know about it before!! So hello everyone and I am encouraged to read that you all seem to be experiencing the ideals that I set when I designed and machined up the first protoype.
I do however have one observation/comment regarding drag.
I did not specifically design any degree of drag into the bearing Per Se, rather it is a function of the extremely close fit between the spindle and the honed "oilite" bearing bush, less than 0.008 mm The oil used is very thin, but still the viscous friction in such a very small clearance causes the very smooth tight feel.

[MartinT]

Hello Mike and welcome. I greatly admire the engineering that went into the bearing, it has the feel of very high quality. Notwithstanding that, my Technics is sounding superb and I'm still detecting some improvement in sound quality as it beds in. Great product!

Tell us what equipment you use and what you like listening to.

[Marco]

Hi Mike,

Welcome to AOS - great to have you on board

Marco.

[chris@panteg]

Hi Mike

Welcome to AOS ' your bearing upgrade has made a lot of music lover's very happy ' hats off to you sir .

I have Dave's bearing in my 1210 ' but i intend to upgrade to your bearing when the time is right .

[REM]

Greetings Mike, good to have you here. The bearing's a work of art, you can 'feel' the work that's gone into it and it sounds fantastic (or should that be it doesn't 'sound' at all?)

[Mike_New]

REM
You have hit the nail on the head so to speak, so many folks on another adio site spend all their time defining how a bearing sounds.

My system:-- NAD M3 and SACD player driving KEF 203 reference speakers. The speakers are Bi wired via the outputs A & B on the M3 and the Velodyne 12" bass unit is driven independantly via the pre-amp output on the M3 (effectively bi-amping on the low frequency range) SL1200 with external PS and bearing, also 1.8Kg copper mat mechanically "connected" to platter with thick silicone grease. I have fitted an OL modified Rega 250 arm and rondo blue MC. I am about to get a SME V from Dave, as I now consider that the sonic quality of the TT justifies it.

[Marco]

Hi Mike,

Good news on the SME V. With your bearing fitted (and a high quality off-board PSU), I don't doubt that the SL-1200 now deserves an arm of that calibre

As more and more people have your superb bearing fitted to their SL-1200/1210s (and trust me that will be the case with the exposure it'll get here on AOS and elsewhere), I predict sales of more expensive tonearms to partner it (other than Jelcos, etc) will increase accordingly. Good news for Dave!

I believe that your bearing is a landmark product and will elevate the performance of the SL-1200 to unprecedented levels, making it one of the best turntables available at any price.

I'm off down to Dartmouth today to have my bearing fitted to my SL-1210, and a full review of its performance will follow!

Marco.

P.S Where are you from, Mike?

[Beechwoods]

Have a good day Marco.

[Marco]

Cheers, Nick - will do. Dave's always the most congenial of hosts. It's around a 650 mile round-trip, so you can't say I'm not keen!

Marco.