I know, it’s been more than two months since I’ve posted anything. Main job has been hectic and summer is been hot, so not much done on Audiomaniak’s garage besides cleaning it up and and small repairs. Anyways, let’s talk about tonearms. Tonearms are an integral part of a turntable, it is the mechanical structure that joins the phono cartridge and the sub-chassis which sustains the rotating platter. The tonearm must not add or subtract any information (vibrations) extracted by the phono cartridge. As such it must be rigid and light enough to ensure this information is never lost. If information is lost there is no way to recreate it no matter what is done down the audio chain.
There are some ideas around improving tonearms by rewiring its internal cabling with exotic materials like silver litz or 99.99999% oxygen free copper wires. Whatever wiring is chosen it must be light and flexible enough to ensure the tonearm tracks the grooves as mandated by the phono cartridge.
A few weeks ago I was contacted to see if I was interested in repairing a tonearm. The tonearm was damaged by its owner while trying to solder some exotic cartridge tags. At the end the diagnostic was a full tonearm rewire was required.
Rega tonearms are one of the most favored rewiring candidates due to their simplicity. Even though I have never before tried performing a tonearm rewire, I had read so much information on how to do it that I was sure it could be accomplished.
Below is a picture of the dismantled Rega RB110 tonearm:
As you can see the entire bearing assembly had to be disassembled to be able to properly pass the wiring look thru the very small hole between the arm collar and tonearm.
Once wires were properly passed thru all holes it was just a matter of cutting excess wire to ensure it did not interfere with the gymbal bearing movement.
Took a few hours of trial and error but in the end the tonearm performed better than before. Below is the final product.
Enjoy!
Vic
