DIY tonearm and semi DIY turntable.....

Well hear is a project I have been working on for a little while. I got the original idea to make my own tonearm from this site http://www.altmann.haan.de/tonearm/. I looked further and found a couple threads over a DIYaudio.com about a unipivot based on Altmann's design and had to give it a wirl. The arm tube is just an arrow shaft, the headshell and arm base are from a Sansui TT that the arm tube had come unglued, the pivot point a ball point pen glued into the Sansui base, and the pivot point in the arm is just a set screw, the whole counter weight assembily is just made from random nuts and bolts and some wood, and the tonearm wires are Radioshack magnant wire. The arm is a bit rough, I am planning to build a nicer one now that I know it works well

The table is just some scrap plywood I found in the garage with the platter and motor from a belt drive Technics TT. I laminated it with some cork shelf liner because 1. it was cheap and easy 2. I thought it would help dampen the TT.

I just got it up and running tonight and wow does it sound good! I just cannot belive how much better it sounds than my Sansui Sr-535 I had before it. Dead quiet, very ballenced tone overall, and all this from a homade table and arm, with a 15$ cart!!

The whole project was very cheep, under 50 bux with a cartridge! Granted the cart is a 15$ AT But it sounds amazing in this setup

some pics:thmbsp:

First....Uncle Buck is classic. :yes:

Second...

How is the alignment on that?

I should look into making one for my as yet STILL unfinished now-semi-DIY tt....

vinyldavid said:

First....Uncle Buck is classic. :yes:

Second...

How is the alignment on that?

I should look into making one for my as yet STILL unfinished now-semi-DIY tt....

Click to expand...

I love Uncle Buck!!

The alignment I used was Loefgren 70.29/116.60, it seemed to come out the best. The arm I used a mounting distance of 12in from stylus tip to pivot point and 12in from spindle center point to pivot point on the arm. Seemed to work out well. The VTA I drilled the hole so that the arm base would work out to lvl, so the VTA is just level with the playing surface. Hope that answers your question, Nick

Well a little update on the table.

I added a Sumiko Pearl to the table. I also drilled out the armtube to make it lighter to better suit the Pearl. I also ended up using a Bearawald alignment, which turned out the best. really enjoying this table, sounds fantastic!

How about a March 2009 update? Are you still using it? Any changes since your last post ?

Uncle Buck. Nice. :yes:

az

Well the table has undergone many changes since this version:yes:


The motor that I used for it was just too loud, I mean it was out of a low-end Technics Belt drive. So after the damage to my Sansui SR-535's arm (moved and someone damaged it during the move), I just pulled the motor and its controls out of that table and mounted that to some plywood and covered the motor in 4 pounds of Electrical duct seal (like clay but wont harden) to "deaden" it. The arm base I had been working on was mounted up. It is 4.5dx5wx1.5h with a piece of arrow shaft running through it. the arrow shaft has a section of an allen key in it with a ball point pen tip JB welded to it. The allen key pivot point is held in place by a set screw, so that the VTA can be adjusted easily. The hollow space inside the arm base was filled with 2ish pounds of Electrical duct seal. The arm I filled with sand to help eliminate resonance, and sealed off the ends with a small amount of electrical duct seal. The results are quite good, the table sounds great. The backgrounds are dead silent, and the music is very detailed with no distortion. I need to make a new plinth for it, it looks like crap right now, but it sounds good and thats really all I care about!