Dual EDS 1000 and airprodigy linear arm build

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Ant
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#61 Re: Dual EDS 1000 and airprodigy linear arm build

Post by Ant »

I think you're probably right that it's a combination of factors, one thing I've mused over is the headroom of a phono stage having a direct effect on this, Making for a splashy orrible top end with sibilance and a curtailed bass end that just seems to fade away if the phono stage can't deliver the poke required.

You can always tune some of it out with careful setup but never as much as I'd like. Its like nails on a blackboard to me.
But sometimes it's just not there, such as with this arm and the dv20. which as this arm removes alignment error, suggests to me that alignment is a major factor, perhaps the biggest factor, and the stylus profile is also a large factor. The fact that i have been able to get a very good performance out of the soundsmith shanked elliptical, which is a fairly wide elliptical from the measurements also suggests that alignment is even more critical with more basic stylii than people think if you can't stand the spit

You always see in reviews of stuff with fancy stylii, that alignment and vta are critical, not so much with the cheaper carts. It to me is probably even more important
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izzy wizzy
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#62 Re: Dual EDS 1000 and airprodigy linear arm build

Post by izzy wizzy »

This conversation happened at an opportune time. I had just scribbled out a phono design using the stuff I have lying around for a one box build which I haven't done in about 20 years. Was lamenting the sale many years ago of Stevens and Billington MC transformers for peanuts and this chat reminded me about MM cartridges and their strengths. Who needs no stinking MC for this project. And the SME3009 on the 401 has a super light headshell so perfect. I feel a very slow moving thread coming on :)
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#63 Re: Dual EDS 1000 and airprodigy linear arm build

Post by Ant »

If it was me, I'd be looking at the at vm540ml for an mm cart. As you lot know I have a thing for Japanese carts, at's and dynavectors in particular. The 540 is in my experience an exceptional tracker for the price, 220 quid is pretty reasonable. Im not sure the 740 is worth the extra, it's got a heavier body but other than that, they sound pretty much identical. And a 3009 doesn't want a heavy cart in it anyway.
I very nearly just bought a new 540 for this deck, but the dv20 came up at a price I couldn't ignore so I bought it instead
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#64 Re: Dual EDS 1000 and airprodigy linear arm build

Post by izzy wizzy »

This pretty much confirms what you said https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articl ... ving-iron/
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#65 Re: Dual EDS 1000 and airprodigy linear arm build

Post by Ant »

Nice to know that there are a few people of a similar opinion re mm carts
The 540 is abit of a steal
I would have liked audio technica to do a 550 sh with their light plastic body and shibata stylus rather than just having the 750sh with the heavy body, I reckon there's a good chance that a 5 series body with the shibata stylus would sound better than the heavy body. It'd make it easier to match the cart with the arm if the option was there. You could make one by buying the cheapest 5 series cart and an sh stylus but it would probably cost more than just buying a 750sh, which is identical to the at150sa I had. That cart is still one of my very favourite carts
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#66 Re: Dual EDS 1000 and airprodigy linear arm build

Post by Ant »

Well its now been run through the full gauntlet of my most awful, damaged, nasty and problematic records.
Including but not limited to, marc cohn, knackered and hot recording on his voice, tangerine dream ‐ stratosfear, an original that usually sounds utterly knackered and has a great big scratch on it, level 42 that usually always goes spitty on the last track on side one because the grooves go right in close to the spindle, aswad - distant thunder which is generally awful, and buggered, and a very tired copy of fine young cannibals - the raw and the cooked which was actually eaten by a k18 on a basik arm on an lp12. Utterly ruined.

It has sailed through all my torture records. With flying colours.
Ive developed an appreciation of the fine young cannibals record, ive never heard it reproduced cleanly until now.
Surface noise even on these awful discs is negligable, it doesnt seem to care about scratches that cause skips on pretty much everything else i have handy to play them on. Damage, it minimises the impact of it, to a level where it is not much of a bother. These discs are wince inducing on the other decks in the house.
And it doesnt spit. Even when playing records that were previously approached with trepidation.

Ive thrown everything at it that i can think of, and rediscovered a few previously off limits parts of my record collection.
I think ive found the sound ive had in my head for all these years.

Others may not necessarily agree if they hear it, but im very happy with it.
What to do next?, well i have a superb benchmark to try to surpass with anything else i build..........
Onwards!
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#67 Re: Dual EDS 1000 and airprodigy linear arm build

Post by izzy wizzy »

It's times like this that reinforces your belief/choice in vinyl but it's also amazing there's still mileage in such an old medium of a rock in a groove so long after its "demise".
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#68 Re: Dual EDS 1000 and airprodigy linear arm build

Post by IslandPink »

What a terrific result Ant, better than you'd hoped ? I do remember how much better the inner tracks were when I used Vic's early air-bearing arm. We must hear this at Owston, ( if you can transport it safely ).
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#69 Re: Dual EDS 1000 and airprodigy linear arm build

Post by Ant »

I was expecting good things from it when i decided on the arm, albeit tempered with thoughts of stuck carriages and bent cantilevers.
I was actually a little wary of it when i started setting it up, as the terminator that nigel lent me that i used on the jbe got stuck half way through a side and bent the cantilever on the at-f7 i used to have. I was lucky with it in that i sent it up to nat and dom, and dom realigned it for me, so there was no permenant damage done to it.
It turned out that there was an air leak with that arm somewhere in the system, probably in the plenum tank so it was losing pressure the further from the manifold inlet the carriage went.
So my enthusiasm was somewhat curbed before i started.
The rudimentary bodged setup id done with vics arm wasnt remotely as good as this one is, but this one has taken weeks of tiny little tweaks to get it just right, to get the last few percent so its definitely not fit and forget. However, i think that the time and effort ive put in to this deck, and the fact that i built it from the ground up to take this arm rather than bodging it onto some existing deck, was well worth it.
The dual motor is something special too, to me it has something of a garrard/lenco character, in that it just ploughs on regardless, it has that powerful character to it without the noise associated with it. That iron fist in a velvet glove thing that the best idlers seem to have. It doesnt sound quite like a direct drive if that makes sense. It sounds like i imagine the best dds such as sp10s and trios sound like. Not that ive heard sp10s and trios, but you get the idea. The jbe and to some extent the jvc have a slight nervousness to them which it doesnt have.
The plinth is the same high mass laminated construction that i pretty much always go for, and is identical in construction other than the shape and cutout to the one the big lenco is in. Kind of a half way house between that lenco and the type 2 teardrop lenco. I have stuck with what works for me.
Overall it has surpassed my expectations for it, it was supposed to be a quick project to relieve some boredom but ended up being something more.
And yes it still amazes me what its possible to get out of vinyl, especially if one is willing to put the time in.
And it also pleases me to be able to hear a record without the alignment induced anomalies i can now hear with my other decks.
And it pleases me that ive managed to make something special. To me at least.....
To be honest it probably wont go to an owston, because the arm is so sensitive to setup. The deck has to be perfectly level, levelled at the platter not the deck top, the air beam has to be perfectly adjusted level and the air pump has to be positioned so its noise isnt intrusive. To move it and re set it up so its perfect would be a complete sod. And if its wrong you know it is.
Plug and play it is not....
But if anyone is interested in hearing it they are most welcome to come and have a listen. Suitably distanced and disinfected of couse
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#70 Re: Dual EDS 1000 and airprodigy linear arm build

Post by JamesD »

Wow great result with the system and I understand that a lot of it is down to the arm but do you have sense of how the deck ranks against the Lenco's etc that you've built?

I dug my Dual 701 out of the store to have a look at it so I'm really curious how the eds1000 stacks up against the competition as I dug out a Lenco G78 at the same time :-)

I also found my Ariston RD 110 with Mission 774 arm and Elite MCP555 too - thinking of putting the eds 1000 and the 774 together... one day...

James
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#71 Re: Dual EDS 1000 and airprodigy linear arm build

Post by Ant »

Well thats an interesting comparison, mainly because the big lenco and this deck have identically constructed plinths (other than the shape and cutouts of course) so in those terms its pretty equal.
I spent alot of time experimenting with the arm mountings with the various lencos, this is going back about 4 years when i built that first teardrop shaped lenco, in order to get it as quiet as possible in terms of transferred noise at the cart. I found that the deck mounting was fairly easy to do quietly, but it was never going to be as quiet as a dd or bd deck. The rumble was there. Best way ive found to make the deck really quiet is to give the motor unit one path to transfer noise, and to isolate the arm from that noise.
So to that effect, the big lenco has all the tricks ive learned built i to it.
The motor unit is bolted down into the plinth directly. The mounting stud holes are way oversized so that the studs dont touch the plinth inside. The nuts and washers are isolated from the plinth via thick nitrile washers so that it doesnt transfer vibration into the plinth through the studs at all. It transfers in via the motor unit edge, right into the top surface. The motor has been rebuilt and tweaked as quiet as possible, the bearing rebuilt with new sleeves and thrust pad, the chassis damped with bitumen damping pads, the idler rebuilt, skimmed and trued up on the lathe, and everything that can be removed has been removed.
The arm board then sits in a deep cutout that is half the depth of the plinth, meaningthat there is no direct transfer from the motor to the arm. The arm board is massy, and is also isolated by big silicone grommetts so what vibration does get past the layers in the plinth and isnt sunk out via the spike feet has an additional barrier to get past. So the only direct contact the arm has with the motor unit is through the stylus tip and the record where the spindle touches the inside of the spindle hole. The platter has a 5mm nitrile mat to give as much isolation as possible.
This makes it very very quiet for a lenco.
The dual motor by contrast, needs no isolation at all, its directly screwed into the plinth.
Percieved noise on both is nigh on nil. The lenco has a little bit more if you go looking for it, there is none i can hear from the dual.
So, they are pretty much equal in noise, after a massive amount of effort with the lenco, and none at all with the dual.
So, they are on pretty much equal terms.
The lenco has for me a more identifiable character, even after everything ive done to it to remove that character. You know its a lenco, it has some colour. It is punchy and drives like any lenco does, but without the noise
The dual in this plinth is neutral. By that i mean it disappears and i cant point at it. It draws no attention. Its punchy when the record is punchy, the lenco is punchy all the time if that makes sense. In conjunction with the arm it just plays what is on the disc. I always go on and on about 'clean' sound, like a broken record, but the dual is as clean as ive heard. The lenco has a character where the dual doesnt.
But the thing is i cant say which one i prefer. I dont know that i should have a preference, because i wouldnt rather listen to one or the other in this context. Put another linear arm on the lenco, and i dont think id have a preference.
But the lenco takes so much more work to get there than the dual does
If any of that meaningless ramble makes sense to anyone......

And the biggest spanner in the works is that its all in the context of this particular system. So everyones mileage may vary
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#72 Re: Dual EDS 1000 and airprodigy linear arm build

Post by JamesD »

Ant,

Many thanks for the fulsome reply and explanation. I fully understand what you are saying - its why I like the Lencos but when push comes to shove I go for the big DIrect Drive turntables - I still have my Kenwood with the Denon 103 as my everyday turntable that the whole family can use and I'd like to build the EDS1000 out into as close to a Superdeck as I can get and use the 774 arm. I'm tempted to use a Shure V15 III properly loaded and a Jico SAS stylus as I liked the one I had a lot - it played tunes and you keep reminding us how good some MM can be :-)

The Lenco would be the third deck - I have a Micro Seiki MA-505 tonearm for that - not sure what cartridge for it maybe the retipped elite MCP555...

Those three should cover all the bases then I can sell off my other seven decks...
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#73 Re: Dual EDS 1000 and airprodigy linear arm build

Post by Ant »

Thats pretty much what ive ended up with, a big dd deck that others can use in the jvc, the dual/airprodigy is mine(all mine!), and the big lenco is the outlier. It was built as kind of a demonstrator so if somebody does want one built, they can hear it first. Its fair that someone would want to do so before putting the hand in the pocket
I have the jbe which i cant bear to part with, a gl78 that i bought last week to do something with, a garrard zero 100 with its funny arm that i havent touched since it arrived a few years ago, and various other assorted decks.
I should really sort them out and sell off some of them.
I should probably build another big lenco out if the 78 and sell it, that was the plan.
We shall see though
Quite why mm carts get the short shrift these days i dont know, there are some extremely capable ones available these days. Perhaps its the fact that a top end mm is less than a 700 quid, i cant think of one more expensive than that, and doesnt have that kudos that comes with a higher price. Having said that, the two dynavectors i have i wouldnt part with, but i wouldnt consider spending thousands on a cart,which is essentially a consumable part
I think there is alot of rubbish spouted about mc vs mm that is outdated and irrelevant to most people. Just buy what you like the sound of and be done with it. Doesnt matter if its a 2 grand lyra or a 200 quid audio technica. Just dont discount the 200 quid moving magnet just because its not a moving coil.....
Last edited by Ant on Wed Jul 08, 2020 5:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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#74 Re: Dual EDS 1000 and airprodigy linear arm build

Post by JamesD »

I have a Garrard Zero 100 too!!! I wanted to see if the funny arm actually worked but never got around to it...

And Yes I think three decks are the minimum number really - my wife doesn't fully agree on that but does agree that three decks is better than ten decks!
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#75 Re: Dual EDS 1000 and airprodigy linear arm build

Post by Ant »

Well i have 5 in the living room at the moment, but at least they look tidy.....
Apart from the 78, that looks terrible, and the wife is past caring any more i think......
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