tonearm headshells

[sq225917]

guys i'mgoing to build a new tonearm i have some delicious 14mm spiral wound .5mm wall carbon tube to make the arm out of.

the question is are there any great headshell designs floating round. i kinda like the clearaudio one with the easy angle adjustment.

does anyone have a good close up image that i could base a CAD model on?

[d to the g]

vinyl engine: see library: clearaudio: gallery

Does that help at all?

[sq225917]

wrong headshell. but thanks.

[sreten]

Hi,

Simple, very adjustable design, (effective length and azimuth).

The other side does not have a slot, simply the bolt for cartridge.

Though this is round, you could make an oblong version.

/sreten.

[sq225917]

Sreten, good call i hadn't thought of the SY headshell, beautifully simply.

[d to the g]

I've never seen that headshell, but it's giving me goosebumps. Will I actually go forth with my diy? Let's hope so.

[Nanook]

I believe clearaudio has a similar design

[EC8010]

Hmmm. I'd point out that using a headlump of that design on a 14mm diameter tube is going to:

Be heavy (just where you don't want mass).
Possibly crush the tube.

When I was tinkering with carbon fibre tubes, I used a bit of T section aluminium extrusion and machined one end to a circle to be glued inside the tube, then used the flat protruding along the axis of the tube as the headshell.

[Nanook]

if your comments regarding the weight of the headshell were directed at the type I posted...it can be made out of acrylic, or wood, or some nice unobtainium (er titanium, etc).

Personally I like the idea of acrylic (have a look at the attached immage). The volume required would need to be calculated, then the density to check the total mass if an issue. I like wood as well. It could easily be shaped, starting with a suitably sized dowel.

Having said that, I absolutely love the tonearms that you have posted (EC8010)

sq225917 just because 14mm carbon fibre is available, other stuff is too ( from a local archery range perhaps, cheapest carbon fibre tubes on the planet smilie(' ). I have a couple of other headshell types that I could get pix of too.

oops , you need to know the arm length, mounting position, etc to do an angle offset for the headshell, unless easy to adjust types like the clearaudio type I posted, or single bolt mounted or pivotable types.

[EC8010]

No, I was commenting on the headlumps shown in sreten's posts; quite a nice solution for smaller diameter thicker wall tubes, but not so good for your proposed tube.

Looking at your Perspex combined clamp and fingerlift, you've solved the problem of the ringing fingerlift, but you can't clamp the cartridge very well without it and the Perspex bending. I tried a similar solution (using machined aluminium) and it was easy to align, but tended to pull the plastic housing away from the Shure M95ED cartridge.