TPA
Trade: Tiger Paw
Actually, that should be visiting the Zeta for me, as this is the first time I've ever used one.
Purchased used so was expecting to have to do some work on it, and duly stripped it down to adjust the bearings. You can tell immediately that this was made by an engineering company. The cup and ball bearings are extremely high tolerance, and naturally difficult to re assemble and time consuming to adjust. I would definitely not recommend anyone do this at home, unless you really are comfortable with delicate components. Bearings were set using a stethoscope, finger feel and strips of paper to set torque.
I haven't set about a rewire yet as it uses a non standard connector system at the arm base and I want to change that out at the same time so it'll probably need a little more attention at some point in the future.
Finally I made a specific version of Akula sub chassis to mount it so it is direct mounted and no longer uses the original arm collar. I guess these were only ever heard with the very old Linn arm boards back in the day so was intrigued how it would perform with a modern sub chassis. I also dispensed with the Zeta counter weight and used one of our sKale weights which have O ring decoupling.
Deck is LP12, Radikal, Akula sub chassis, Linn Krystal cartridge. I'm really shocked at how good this is, this is a seriously good arm (in the context of this deck etc) I have no idea why it wasn't more popular back in the day. perhaps it didn't work so well with the old fibre arm board, I don't know, but it is a league ahead of an Ekos, and I didn't think I'd ever say that. It reminds me of an Aro in terms of vocal fluidity, perhaps a touch darker, but very solid tracking. In comparison to the Ekos it's much cleaner and less resonant. Anyway interesting arm, glad I investigated.
Purchased used so was expecting to have to do some work on it, and duly stripped it down to adjust the bearings. You can tell immediately that this was made by an engineering company. The cup and ball bearings are extremely high tolerance, and naturally difficult to re assemble and time consuming to adjust. I would definitely not recommend anyone do this at home, unless you really are comfortable with delicate components. Bearings were set using a stethoscope, finger feel and strips of paper to set torque.
I haven't set about a rewire yet as it uses a non standard connector system at the arm base and I want to change that out at the same time so it'll probably need a little more attention at some point in the future.
Finally I made a specific version of Akula sub chassis to mount it so it is direct mounted and no longer uses the original arm collar. I guess these were only ever heard with the very old Linn arm boards back in the day so was intrigued how it would perform with a modern sub chassis. I also dispensed with the Zeta counter weight and used one of our sKale weights which have O ring decoupling.
Deck is LP12, Radikal, Akula sub chassis, Linn Krystal cartridge. I'm really shocked at how good this is, this is a seriously good arm (in the context of this deck etc) I have no idea why it wasn't more popular back in the day. perhaps it didn't work so well with the old fibre arm board, I don't know, but it is a league ahead of an Ekos, and I didn't think I'd ever say that. It reminds me of an Aro in terms of vocal fluidity, perhaps a touch darker, but very solid tracking. In comparison to the Ekos it's much cleaner and less resonant. Anyway interesting arm, glad I investigated.