Solid or viscous tonearm counterweight?

[Conrad Hoffman]

I have a Thorens TD295III, which is basically a Pro-ject with shiny paint. The arm is nothing special (TP41/42?), but shouldn't be all that bad either. It has a rubber isolated/damped counterweight. In spite of a lot of tune-up work, I don't think the arm and its Ortofon OM30 tracks all that well. My plan is to go out to the garage and turn a fixed brass counterweight, offsetting the hole slightly to lower the cg. Why? Ran out of other things to fool with. Any thoughts on The Philosophy of Counterweights before I start making chips?

[Conrad Hoffman]

Machining the overall counterweight took almost no time at all, but making a tool and broaching the slot to clear the pins on the arm (their idea of threads) took forever in my unheated shop. The results?

I wish I could say they were dramatic, but they're quite subtle, if real at all. The bass seems tighter and some overall fuzz seems a bit reduced, but it's tough to say it's an improvement. It's as if the sound is more accurate, but maybe a bit too dry. Seemed more real with the rubberized and off-center factory weight. I'll leave the new one on for a while and try it with more music to see if I'm missing something.

[Panicos K]

Not really a project Platter is a 2.5kg non magnetic metal and total weight is 8.5kg.Which project have you got in mind?

[Conrad Hoffman]

Though I wouldn't be so harsh, since I got the table used for a reasonable price, have a look at the Audiogon review at:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr...21948&read&3&4

For my own comments on the table I give you:
http://members.rpa.net/~choffman/TD295_Info.doc