Tír Na HiFi

Arcadia....

Just had to say something about my latest (ad)venture! I started thinking about doing this ages ago and after a bit of carefuL research I finally took the plunge and went ahead and ordered the item in question sometime late last week. It arrived yesterday morning. There was no going back now! So I whipped it out of it's tiny package and checked everything was all there. I even checked the wire for continuity - all 5M of it!! So as soon as dinner was over I got down to the job in hand in rewiring my beloved Space Arm! I really took my time in what was a tedious enough and very delicate job - the wire itself contained 32 strands of 0.04 diameter wire! I was able to strip the ends with a tiny piece of very fine sandpaper  which worked out brilliantly! However I was horrified to discover that one of the cartridge tags had no clips!! But all was not lost! I still had a few spare tags lying around that I got from Nottingham Analogue 10 years ago! Rather than go on at length about how I did the job, I'll just say that 3 hours later, with my eyes ready to pop out, I finally completed it! I then set it up on the tt and had a quick listen to establish that everything was just so - it was! Later that night I sat down to have a serious listen and even now I can scarcely believe that a ruler length piece of wire could have such a profound effect on the sound! Everything was improved - smoothness with astonishing clarity, deep, deep and more articulate bass, stereo as wide and high as the Grand Canyon, beautifully rendered voices etc etc etc I'll give you an example: I was listening to one of my weird things and I swear I could hear the sounds coming from the hall the spatial effect was that wide!! Hard to believe that such little outlay could bring about such worthwhile gains. If you check out the link below you'll see it only cost me just a little over a fiver and a vat full of sweat! Looking at the photo the wire looks a tiny bit long but that's the way I want it!





http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Litz-tonearm- ... 1171wt_689



Edit: I forgot to extend thanks to the following for their invaluable advice and general guidance:
Peter - Deco Audio, Dominic - Northwest Analogue (Garrard specialists) and Fran the Man..
Thank you all...

Nice one, I imagine as the wire "burns in" the sound will improve even further.

Ivor wrote:Nice one, I imagine as the wire "burns in" the sound will improve even further.

Thanks Ivor....can't quite believe what I'm hearing at the moment and if it stays like that I'll be more than happy!

Excellent - glad to hear it worked out AOK for you. Its a little unnerving going doing a job like that, but not too bad once you get used to it. I think the finer the wire the better in most cases....

Fran wrote:Excellent - glad to hear it worked out AOK for you. Its a little unnerving going doing a job like that, but not too bad once you get used to it. I think the finer the wire the better in most cases....

Thanks Fran. There were times during the op. when I wished I heeded your advice to leave well enough alone; But that tiny blob of solder just barely holding the broken (old) wire together spurred me on :-)