Which Tonearm

I am building myself a new plint for one my Lenco L75, and I think I make like this. See Link! LencoL75
Which tonearm?? Maybe a Grace G-840, or Yamaha GT-750, or AT 1501 II, or maybe FR-54?, or? I do not want to spend 2500 GBP on a SME 309. I will put on a Nagaoka or Ortofon 2M Black pick-up on the tonearm. My question: Which tonearms of these fits one of these pick-ups best?
 
Last edited:
The common wisdom is to find out the compliance of the cartridge/stylus suspension and match that to the effective mass of the tonearm so that the two combine to resonate at somewhere between 8 and 11 Hz, but not lower or higher than that (if you can help it).

Starting with the effective mass of the tonearm (plus headshell and cartridge mounting hardware), let's say we take the AT-1501 mkII, which is supposed to have an effective mass of around 20g.

The Ortofon 2M Black is supposed to have dynamic compliance of 22 x 10-6cm/dyne, ("22 cu") and weighs 7.2g.

According to the vinylengine cartridge/tonearm resonance tool, a cartridge of 22 cu in a fairly big and heavy tonearm of 20g effective mass produces a resonance of around 7 Hz. That's just a little too low, too close to record warps and the floor shaking from footfalls.

What if you take that same tonearm with eff mass of 20g and put in a low compliance cartridge like a Denon DL103?

The DL103 is pretty heavy itself, about 8.5g. Its dynamic compliance is stated to be 5 x 10-6 cm/dyne, but that's actually measured at 100Hz, while the measurement is supposed to be taken at 10Hz. Some internet sources claim the compliance at 10Hz should be 12 x 10-6 cm/dyne, so that's what I'll call it ("12 cu").

The vinylengine calculator claims the resonance of the Denon DL103 (12 cu) in the AT-1501mkII (20g) will be 9 Hz. That's what we want, higher than 8 Hz but lower than 11 Hz.

Now let's take a lighter tonearm, like the one in the Technics SL1200mkII, which has effective mass of 12g.

The vinylengine calculator says the combination of that arm and the Ortofon 2M Black should resonate at 8 Hz, or just high enough to be in the good zone.

What that means is that (according to the commonly accepted wisdom), you want to couple low compliance cartridges with heavier tonearms, and high compliance cartridges with lighter tonearms. Not everyone agrees with that 100%, but that is the commonly accepted wisdom.

Cartridge Resonance Evaluator - Vinyl Engine
 
Account Closed
Joined 2010
Would you have the guts to make it yourself if someone could prove that you can get a tonearm that could accomodate every single cartridge ever made with no problem with less than 100 dollars in costs, or you'd still preffer to invest in good looking things that once were cheaper than that and now are promoted by the audiophile marketing world for 25 times more money than they were worth 30 years ago?
Unfortunately what people forgot is that all these high endish manufacturers in turntable area got out of bussines in the late 80's and 90's completely selling their stuff for less than 70% of their previous value only to get it sold .Vinils were sold for cents and entire high end turnatables for 50...150 dollars.

And you know why that happened?Because that was the real value of those things when produced in mass quantities. Every time someone tries to convince me otherways i just tell them to watch the old guy ar Rega not being able to make their best tonearm working like they claim in all marketing material after 5 minutes of continuous filming and trials...And it's on youtube, anyone can see the big BS marketed as high end manufacturing.Indians in small shops are replicating watches with 50 rubys and mechanisms that you can barely see working exactly like a 100 000 dollar swiss watch using basically less than 10 kg of tools in just 2 days ...And they get payed like 10 dollars for making a similarly working watch .How much would you pay for that watch if it works the same as the most expensive Rolex?
All turntable market owes its real qualities to Jason Statham role in "The mechanic"...
 
Last edited:
Actually, a Lenco L75 with a home-made tonearm sounds like it would be a blast -- especially if it plays records better than an expensive VPI or whatever.

Is there a thread where this $100 in parts home-made tonearm is described? I wonder how fussy and difficult the project would be...
 
We had a HiFi magazine here in Scandinavia, the danish High Fidelity. Sadly the magazine disappeared in the ninetees? They had a DIY project, maybee in the eightees?. It was a linear tonearm, made of some aluminium angles, razorblades, a tonearmtube made of aBadmington racket.... I do not remember how and so much more, but are there any scandinavians out there?, and maybe there are a copy of the article somewhere?
 
Member
Joined 2009
Paid Member
Here is my replinthed Lenco L75 with homemade tone arms neither of which were expensive to make. Both sound excellent imho especially 12" with the Decca Gold. There is plenty of info over on Lenco Heaven . IMG_0147.jpg

IMG_0145.jpg