Tonearm upgrade

[Nicks952]

Hi all,

My Michell Focus One has requested that I chuck out the Linn Basik Plus and replace it with a better arm.
Cart is Linn K9 with new ML stylus.
so...
Original Mission 774 - always loved those
or
Rega 300, 220 ?

I assume these will be a good step up from the Basik.

Or any thoughts?

Cheers
Nick

 

[Craig B]

Suggest limiting your tonearm choices to those of Linn geometry.

Current Rega tonearms, for example, require a 26mm pillar clearance hole centred at 222mm pivot to spindle, plus the 3 x mounting screw holes at circa 40mm. This will overlap with the exiting 25mm Linn hole at 211mm pivot to spindle by circa 12mm. To do a proper job of this, one would need to fully strip the deck down to bare plinth, plus have some experience of using a drill press with finished board. Even then there be screw holes and gaps, meaning that for best appearances one will end up wanting to fabricate a cover plate of some description.

Mission 774 original/improved would fare better here, as its SME style plinth mounting holes, plus Mission mounting plate arrangement, can cover many sins. Regardless, the same applies as above when it comes to accurately drilling the plinth to accommodate the Mission.

 

[Darren L]

The Focus originally used a Michell Unipivot tonearm so If you can do fiddly and have good manual dexterity

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Tested and fully operational.

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There's also alot of Rega RB200, 250, 300 etc available.

As Craig points out above perhaps sticking to a tonearm that uses Linn geometry is going to be alot more simple.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Linn geometry will be easiest, for sure, maybe an Akito would be a worthwhile step up for sensible dosh. There are other arms using the same geometry - my Alphason HR100S dropped straight onto a Linn armboard, but that might be OTT for the deck and/or budget.

 

[starbuck]

It has been a fair number of years since I owned my Michell Focus One, which when I got it s/hand was fitted with a Mission 774LC tonearm on a simple circular armboard. When I wanted to change the arm for something else, I opted for a lovely SME 3009 S2 Improved with damping trough fitted. A beautiful visual match as well as being a great sounding combo too, I seem to remember that when removing the armboard that the Mission was fitted to, the standard SME cut out was revealed below, along with the 4 mounting holes needed to fit the SME too. No extra cutting or drilling was needed, though maybe I was just very fortunate? I guess have a look at the tonearm area from below and see if there are signs of the SME cut out already present, as Craig B has already advised it will make fitting a new arm much easier if cutting/drilling can be avoided.

 

[the caretaker]

Linn geometry will be easiest, for sure, maybe an Akito would be a worthwhile step up for sensible dosh. There are other arms using the same geometry - my Alphason HR100S dropped straight onto a Linn armboard, but that might be OTT for the deck and/or budget.

+1 for Akito arm
+2 for sensible Dosh
+3 for OTT ( they told me my cart was too good for my deck..pah! )

 

[Nicks952]

Thanks for input everyone! The deck is pre-cut for an SME fitting. The current Linn arm is on a circular arm board.
Took me a while to find that out ! I was looking only at Linn drop-ins, but then my scope was suddenly widened.
Found a chap who makes aluminium SME to Rega plates, so that would be simple enough.
I’m guessing that the mounting plate for an original 774 would fit there too.
Someone on another forum suggested that the 774 would be no better than the Basik, but I trouble believing that. Maybe referring to the other 774s.

If changing deck, would a Rega P3, RB300 be a good step up?

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

It has been a fair number of years since I owned my Michell Focus One, which when I got it s/hand was fitted with a Mission 774LC tonearm on a simple circular armboard. When I wanted to change the arm for something else, I opted for a lovely SME 3009 S2 Improved with damping trough fitted. A beautiful visual match as well as being a great sounding combo too, I seem to remember that when removing the armboard that the Mission was fitted to, the standard SME cut out was revealed below, along with the 4 mounting holes needed to fit the SME too. No extra cutting or drilling was needed, though maybe I was just very fortunate? I guess have a look at the tonearm area from below and see if there are signs of the SME cut out already present, as Craig B has already advised it will make fitting a new arm much easier if cutting/drilling can be avoided.

The Mission 774s are same geometry and fittings as SME, which is dead helpful. You might be able to get a replacement arm board for a Focus One if SMEs were a popular fit, and then a 774 would be a no-brainer I suspect.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Thanks for input everyone! The deck is pre-cut for an SME fitting. The current Linn arm is on a circular arm board.
Took me a while to find that out ! I was looking only at Linn drop-ins, but then my scope was suddenly widened.
Found a chap who makes aluminium SME to Rega plates, so that would be simple enough.
I’m guessing that the mounting plate for an original 774 would fit there too.
Someone on another forum suggested that the 774 would be no better than the Basik, but I trouble believing that. Maybe referring to the other 774s.

If changing deck, would a Rega P3, RB300 be a good step up?

The 774LC is decent enough - fairly typical Jelco-style arm, but a very different beast to the original 774. I'd say if you can find a nice original 774, that'd be the way to go. The only thing to note is that they have threaded, blind, holes for the cart, so you need an unthreaded cart body or, as many have done, need to carefully drill out the holes so the arm will take a threaded cart body.

I'd probably avoid Rega RB300 if it were me. They're a decent enough budget arm, but a bit unimaginative and I don't think worth the effort from a Basik; there's better out there for not much more.

 

[Craig B]

It has been a fair number of years since I owned my Michell Focus One, which when I got it s/hand was fitted with a Mission 774LC tonearm on a simple circular armboard. When I wanted to change the arm for something else, I opted for a lovely SME 3009 S2 Improved with damping trough fitted. A beautiful visual match as well as being a great sounding combo too, I seem to remember that when removing the armboard that the Mission was fitted to, the standard SME cut out was revealed below, along with the 4 mounting holes needed to fit the SME too. No extra cutting or drilling was needed, though maybe I was just very fortunate? I guess have a look at the tonearm area from below and see if there are signs of the SME cut out already present, as Craig B has already advised it will make fitting a new arm much easier if cutting/drilling can be avoided.

It's possible that these were all factory drilled to SME, as Michell's own Focus One Tonearm was mounted on a large round plate that had its 4 x fixing screws appearing to be in the same locations as would be the screws of a platter spindle pointing SME mounting plate. This may or may not have applied to the later Focus One S version, as ISTR having seen some of these Focus One Tonearm plates with 3 x mounting screws at 120 degrees apart.

Here is a shot of a tatty looking Basik LV-V on such a plate...

And here is a Mayware straddling said SME cutout (looks factory drilled to moi).

 

[nmtjb]

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That ads been around for a good while now...not sure how you'd get a Monks to work well without the mercury, would be a faff to rewire to bypass the tanks?

 

[colasblue]

Alphason Xenon would be good choice if you can find one and will drop into a Linn armboard. Should be a lot cheaper than a HR100s and is 99% as good. Also visually similar in shape to the LVV (which is a truly awful thing).

If Michell still make armboards at sensible cost (and I'm guessing they do) then some form of Rega would be a winner. I'd actually be tempted to go for one of Johnnie 7's stripped and rewired RB250's. If the armboard is available I don't think it could be bettered on a "bang for buck" basis.

Sticking with the Linn geometry I think a black finished arm would just look wrong on that deck which rules out the Basik plus, Akito and Ekos and the Linn Ittock would be a problem because of its arm clip. What price a used Clearaudio made Linn Krane??

Alternatively a Jelco arm of some sort might be worth looking at.

 

[Craig B]

For me, it would have to be a 3009. Looks more at home than Michell's own Focus One Tonearm (although, I'm not sure what this bloke was thinking wrt the mounting screws).

 

[colasblue]

If the plinth is drilled for SME and the plate is just an adaptor them an SME to Rega adaptor is readily available for the older type Rega arms

Hole 14 to 25mm SME conversion arm phono arm base For Vinyl record players | eBay

Size: The size of the special switch arm plate for the phonograph is 80x50x25mm, small and light, and does not occupy space. Model Number: Conversion Arm. Inner hole: 20mm/0.79in. Due to the different monitor and light effect, the actual color of the item might be slightly different from the...

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or

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[Mr Pig]

I wouldn't buy a Linn arm simply because it'll fit. Linn arms are very poor value these days because the prices have been driven up by the shortage of Linn geometry arms to put on LP12s and other old Linn decks.

The Basik Plus is a perfectly good budget arm but nothing more. It was never meant to be. Virtually anything you replace it with will be better but the good news is that, due to the shortage of Linn arms, you'll get good money for it!

The Akito is a nice step up from the Basik. Much cleaner sounding and very neutral but it lacks the dynamics of the Ittok and is fragile. Heck of a lot of them need or needed bearing rebuilds. Really too expensive these days for what it does.

The Ittok is a pile driver of an arm with great bass and dynamics but it's coloured, unforgiving and very old. I know of one person who still fixes them, they do go wrong and most parts are unavailable except from donor arms. Prices have stabilized and they're good arms but I wouldn't buy one today because, Rega arms exist!

Yeah, it's boring as heck but Rega made tonearms so good and such good value that they decimated the UK tonearm market and still do. You need to spend a lot of money to get an arm significantly better than a Rega and nothing will be more reliable or come with a lifetime warranty.

If you want to keep the vintage look you could go for an old SME but they're not cheap, limited in cartridge choice and I honestly don't know that it would be massively better than a Basik.

It's very much a personal choice, I just nail Regas to everything ;0) Listening to an RB3000 on an LP12 just now and an RB201 is going on the LP12 I'm making soon. I know, bo-ring :0)

The initial criticism that Rega arms were a bit grey was somewhat justified, nothing careful matching couldn't sort, but modern arms are different. They look cheaper made, and I'm sure they are, but they sound great. Any one of them will demolish your Basik. Buy the best you can afford.

 

[Eoin]

Surely the answer to ‘which tonearm should I buy’ is always an SME V.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Surely the answer to ‘which tonearm should I not buy’ is always an SME V.

FTFY

 

[Eoin]

 

[Nicks952]

I’ll take anyone’s Series V for £300

More seriously, this guy does SME-Rega plates and many others soundsupports.co.uk/product/sme-to-rega-adaptor-plate/

I think, much as I’d love an old 774, my safest bet with the med-low compliance K9 would be to go Rega, although the 774 does have the paddles to compensate…..
Whichever, I’ll probably rewire it myself.
Thanks for the lively discussions! Most informative and enjoyable.

 

[Nicks952]

Did just see a Pro-Ject 9CC on Fleabay. From a Linn Majik. Any thoughts?