A few years ago, as a budding audiophile searching for a tonearm to replace the worn original Lenco tonearm from my L75 turntable, I remember reading about this DIY tonearm handmade by croft from the echoloft forums. Being new to the hobby, the entire concept of "do it yourself" in a hifi context seemed alien, almost sacreligious. How could something handmade from scratch compare with a piece of HiFi equipment, meticulously researched, designed, manufactured and tested to exacting standards in order to produce the best sound possible for your dollar! Impossible! the voice in my head resonated. In the end, budget dictated my choice and I ended up with the Linn Basik LVX+ tonearm that mated well with my turntable. A veritable workhorse of an arm that did what it was supposed to do, but certainly nothing to shout home about. I would upgrade to a better Linn arm when the funds came.
This Linn arm served me well for 3-4 years and I was happy with it for the most part, partly because I did not have anything to compare it against. However, I was on more than a few occasions annoyed when the tonearm mistracked and kept skipping, repeating the same passage of music over and over again. This happened particularly more often the closer it got to the inner groove.
I bore with this irritant until the day i decided to upgrade my cartridge 3 months ago, from the lowly AT-CN5625AL to an Ortofon 2m Red. Holy smokes the cart I just bought for $150 (A big sum for a cheapie audiophile like myself) does not fit on the Linn FIXED headshell! I certainly wasn't going to go through the trouble of exchanging the cartridge or try to sell it secondhand.. so what was I to do?
Change my tonearm too! And definately not to the Ittok LVII which I was considering. That way I get the flexibility of choosing any cartridge I desire should I want to in the future. But which arm?
After pondering and spending many sleepless nights, my mind's filing cabinet database flicked through a distant memory of this strange and intriguing tonearm. Could this be the answer to my tonearm dilemma? At $400 a pop i was out of budget then, but barely scrapped into the affordability zone now. I then proceeded to do what I always do when I want to buy something.. research the death out of it. I read up on DIY tonearms, bamboo material if possible, and the benefits of unipivot tonearms.
While the research itself hardly dragged up any substantial information, I did find out that people who did construct and use these frankenstein creations actually had good things to say about it. Bamboo is a fairly inert material and doesn't impart any unwanted vibrations or resonance that may affect the delicate phono signal. Furthermore unipivots were generally simple and uncomplicated designs that functioned well and sounded good.
The thing about reading reviews about HiFi, is that it is never truly accurate because the tester has different equipment, different hearing sensitivities and biases and a different listening environment than yours. It is so subjective it seems almost pointless to read up on anything else but the build quality, design, durability and other objective qualities. But yet me and many others continue to do so. I can't explain it, its not logical, but somehow I like to hold on to the belief that the piece of equipment about has certain properties that exhibit themselves regardless of system interaction and balance. Properties like warmth, dynamism, enhanced bass clarity, sparkling highs and all of the other HiFi synonyms it seems every review gives to the product they are reviewing
It is with this in mind that I excitedly called croft the next day, enquiring about his DIY tonearm. I learnt that due to the poor response in the past to DIY (fair enough, I was a sceptic too) he had stopped making it, but he could easily build me one if given some time because he had the blueprints. I asked him about how the 'sound' of the tonearm was like and he said something that made so much sense: "The tonearm sound is very system dependent, why don't you come down for an audition and see if you like it."
"Sure!" I never looked back. It was a thing of beauty. I remember asking once more how he thought the sound was like. But all he said was "I don't know how it sounds like, but it sounds good in my system, and it works and I enjoy the music, so thats all there is to it as far as I'm concerned." This was what enjoying music is all about, its not about which arm has the best bass or the best midrange. It works, it doesn't sound bad, and the music comes out enjoyable. Sounds like a plan I thought. Tonearms shouldn't impart any 'tone', they should be neutral! Isn't that what the point of HiFi is about, to accurately reproduce music as it was meant to be heard?
I got sold when he offered to temporarily align the tonearm to my turntable so that I can judge personally how it would interact with the turntable. Its not my system in terms of amplifiers and speakers, but its better than nothing.
Stay tuned for Part 2 for more details about the tonearm!
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