Ok! Thoughts on the Traveler after a couple weeks with it...
Pros: It sounds good, very very similar to my (heavily modded) Planar 2 actually. It has some audible motor hum but only when turned up beyond normal listening levels. It may be ever so slightly weaker in the bass range but the compliance of my Sumiko Blackbird is a little low for this arm vs. the RB 250. Still, put on music, turn it up to a reasonable level, and I don't find myself listening to the table at all, which for me is how I know that things are working. Speed stability is good enough for me. I measured it right at the .01% claimed using Platterspeed and my 3150hz test record. It also runs just a tad (test tone measured ~3160hz) fast.
Cons: Plinth isn't level. It actually has a slight sag through the middle. Purely an aesthetic gripe but I find it odd nonetheless. Installing a cart and getting the skating set up was fussy at best. I was twisting and fiddling with the wire like crazy to get the arm to float over the record surface at all. It was either pulling inward or outward no matter what I tried for the longest time. And then getting the VTF set has been troublesome as well. The arm sometimes seems to stick and not carry any weight until I lift and re-set it in the groove or on the stylus gauge. In the previous case, it on occasion won't track the lead in and will skip. I think its possible that a bearing is damaged but I was extremely careful mounting my nude, ruby cantilevered Sumiko on this thing so if I damaged a bearing installing, they're simply much too fragile to be used in a gimballed arm with a fixed headshell. Also, the pulley on the motor shaft was mounted too low and just barely rubbing on the plinth when I first set it up. Just a bad QC error tbh.
, but it sure sounds like your piece has a few quality control issues.
