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Let's mod a PL-41 !

thedelihaus said:
You can get them all over eBay for a few bucks. Often sold as "end of Tonearm" spirit level.

NeedleDoctor sells the replacement Sumiko finger lifts, $9. I don't like them- they (and almost any finger lift) have been tested to pick up vibration, and transfer it to the tone arm.

I'd say more than half of the photos on the internet run the Sumiko FT-3 and FT-4 without them, and I feel this is best.

I filled up two of these pots recently- notorious (like the Sonys) for going dry.

Unscrew the top lift- and take it off. Drop the piston from the carrier frame. Use a syringe and inject the tiny guide hole with silicone damping fluid. Re-assemble.

Do you need some more fluid? I just got a new thing of it. Or you could use the stuff I sent you in the glass jar. Let me know.

I tested the arm lift, but sans cartridge. Sorry about that. The added cartridge weight must be weighing it down enough to speed up the action dramatically.
Click to expand...

What is the correct fluid? I have 100,000 cSt that I had used on the stock PL-41 cueing device. Check this bubble level out. Expensive, but would look nice on this TT: http://www.musicdirect.com/product/73321
Isotonic said:
I was curious about the metal/drilling aspect of what you did.
Click to expand...

What would you like to know?
 
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I'm getting ready to compare the PL-41 to my favorite...

OK, here's what my PL-41 has to come up against, a Linn LP-12 with Valhalla power supply, new springs and grommets, new belt and a just broken in Ortofon X-5MC, I am proficient at tuning Linns, so there's no problem there in my mind...the "thing" on the front of the cartridge is a damping dot made from a couple of layers of heavy aluminum duct tape on top of a piece of Dynamat...it's my version of a Marigo dot made with just "found" items...

The Ittok has a Graham Silver arm lead, and is flat out my plain favorite of the dozens of manufactured and homebrewed arm leads that I tried...something that I just won't be able to replicate on the Pioneer, but I did make some clips and attached them to RCA jacks so that I can attach any interconnect I wanted...too bad that I just don't have anything as high quality as the Graham...but I do have a couple of Cardas and Wireworld things along with a clone of the JPS Labs original Superconductors that I made from 1/4" FSJ1-50 Andrew Heliax that I will try on the PL-41...

There's also a couple of the old Harmonix tuning dots, one on the headshell and one on the armboard, along with a real Marigo Dot on the headshell...

linn01.jpg


ortofon1.jpg


The Sondek has a baseplate made from 1/2" Baltic birch that replaces the original hardboard piece of crap...there are relief areas routed out to allow a free bounce of the tonearm lead, and this plate really reinforces the plinth of the Linn and makes it a lot more rigid....there are four clear vinyl feet on it which are actually self adhesive doorknob protectors, you stick these on walls to keep doorknobs from denting the wall...and this sits on a custom shelf that I made just for the Linn...it follows the constrained layer principle, there are inner layers of foam-core board (like kids use for projects), glued together with 1/8" thick sheets of Masonite, a thin sheet of aluminum, a few layers of heavy, hard vinyl...this forms a kind of pad that the top and sides "float" on...the top is glued to the constrained layer, along with the plywood bottom, but the sides float free, and I used 1/4" threaded inserts in the bottom piece of plywood to allow either spikes or the acorn nuts I am actually using instead....

The PL-41 won't fit on this shelf, though, so it will be handicapped a bit...

So, I thought that I'd try to even the playing field by using an Audioquest headshell and the Benz H2O cartridge...photos of the PL-41 tomorrow....

Stay tuned...

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That's hardly going to be a fair comparison with the Linn's superior platter and arm suspension. I wish the PL-41 luck but it's going to need a ton of mods to even come close imo.
 
It will be very enlightening, especially after the new Delrin thrust plate and the polishing of the shaft will help eliminate the one thing that stood out before about the Pioneer, the fact that things just did not emerge from as black a background as some of my other tables...

I figure sticking a $1200 cartridge on it will go a long way also towards answering the question about putting an expensive cartridge on a cheap table or to put a cheap cartridge on an expensive table...I have always felt like the latter is the way to go...all my trials up to this point have done nothing but reinforce that....

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Well, I gotta hand it to you old hands - that dl160 made a nice improvement, even without another phono stage yet. I first played a near mint copy of "Feats Don't Fail Me Now" and am now into a virgin playing of "Voodo Chile" on a Half Speed Master copy of Electric Lady Land, I just picked up the other day. I swear I could hear the mustache hairs move on the back up singers :D The tube distortion on the organ backing up Jimi is quite impressive, as were all the horns on the Little Feat Album. Thanks for all the solid advice.
 
The First Shots of Getting the PL-41 Ready

Unfortunately the Audioquest headshell will not allow me to align the Benz H2O in this tonearm....the cartridge sits forward at least 1/4" too far...so, to just set it up and get it ready, I set up the Ortofon X-3MC on some kind of solid aluminum headshell with leads made from Cardas wire, clips and solder...I had to use an extra bit of weight to get the arm to balance, and you can see that as the chrome plated slotted plate behind the cartridge mounting screws, it's held on my double sided masking tape...I then aligned it with my Dennesen Soundtractor and these are some of the first pictures....

The tonearm is very easy to use with the Soundtractor as the center point is very, very easy to define:

pioneer3.jpg


Here I just stuck a napkin between the platter and the belt cover to keep the platter from turning while I aligned the cartridge:

pioneer2j.jpg



pioneer1.jpg



I have actually misplaced my Sumiko headshell, but as soon as I find it I will install the Benz into it...

You can also see in the images that the center part of the Pioneer's mat is missing...I just took two layers of 1/16" craft foam and stuck them together to cover the center....

More to come as it develops....
 
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OK, I found a slightly less than craptastic Technics headshell, it's no Sumiko or Audioquest, but I've got it...it's fairly well damped and I installed the Audioquest cartridge wires on it and then installed and aligned the H2O...

Time to try 'er out, I guess!

pioneer5.jpg

By chinguezdomingez at 2010-09-21
 
Now, one other quick note before I go get lost in the den, I do use a voltage stabilizer unit meant for sensitive electronic devices...I bought a few of them surplus a several years back, and they not only have isolation transformers in them, but clean and condition the AC...they have a switch for 120 or 240 Volts on them and once I inadvertently had one switched for 240...it still was able to maintain over 100 Volts, so it's a pretty capable unit it seems....I tried one years ago on my Linn and it made the soundstage bigger and the silences greater so it has stayed in the system...

This is what the Pioneer will also be plugged into....

Also, with the recent work on the main bearing and shaft I will let the Pioneer run for a while at 45 RPM to make sure that all is just well and settled in...I also decided to let the H2O run on an LP for a while to loosen it up, it's been a while since I last used it and it always seems to take at least an album side for a cartridge to loosen up if it hasn't been played in a few days, so hopefully this will also let the benz deliver what it can...
 
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