Tonearm repair

engie490

Looking for someone versed in tonearm repair. Have a sick Fidelity Research FR-14. Not passing signal, vertical movement is compromised.

newbie308

Did you check continuity of each wire with an ohm meter? I would inspect all of the connection points before I went any further. If that arm has a removable head shell, that would be my first suspect. Those contacts are lightly spring loaded and might not be reaching the contacts on the head shell. Especially if someone changed the wires in the arm once before. A little bit of solder too far up the back of the pin would be enough to hold the arm contacts back away from the head shell. If you probe the arm without the head shell and all wires ring good, then try connecting the head shell and testing again. It that rings good, then connect the arm cable assembly and test again. Eventually you will find the lack of connection point. I sincerely doubt that the wires inside the arm are broken. They just don't move enough to break under normal use.

If you don't have the test equipment, I'd be happy tp investigate or repair it for you. I have rebuilt several arms in my lifetime.

jdjohn

What's the history of your arm? If it was overrated too far in either direction, the wires could have gotten pinched in the vertical pivot joint. If the arm was transported without being properly secured, this could have occurred.

engie490

Thanks for the replies!

To be honest, I bought it years ago and didn’t really get around to mounting it. Now that I’m trying to get down to just the stuff I need, I mounted it and found the two issues.

The arm didn’t really “float” when I was adjusting the counterweight, so that is definitely a problem. I could get the arm to track enough to hear it in groove, but the signal wasn’t getting to the phono stage.

I was using the headshell for the FR-14, so I switched to a known good cart/shell and still nothing through the speakers. Rechecked the cable and it felt like it was inserted properly.

I have a DMM and can check the continuity, but the vertical movement is much more problematic. The arm was shipped to me encased in foam and seemed perfectly secure. But that is all I know about the history of it’s handling.

SCompRacer

I'm thinking what jdjohn proposed is what happened, pinched wires.

Here is a typical DIN plug in arm pivot post wire diagram. To check for pinched wires, check each terminal to terminal and terminal to arm as well. Only the ground terminal should read continuity between ground and arm. If you have more than one wire with continuity to arm or pivot or other terminals, you do have pinched or shorted wires.

I've rewired arms, but not an FR14. Typically, the removable headshell nut assembly is secured to arm with tiny screw. The DIN plug in arm base might be set screw holding it in. Desoldering wires will be required at one end. My choice is always at DIN plug as it is larger. Take a pic or make diagram noting colors, connections. Typically, you have excess wire in arm pivot base to pull din plug out and work with it.

When I rewire an arm, I prefer not to disassemble bearings. I solder a thin wire to DIN end wires and push/pull wires through arm end. (Your 'fish tape' or pull wire has to be long enough to pull wires back through). If you have some old CAT 5 stranded around, you can source 24 gauge pull wire from there. Stranded is more flexible to pull wires through.

Some arms will have small piece of foam around wires where tonearm meets pivot. That is why I remove wires from arm end first.

Good luck!

engie490

I'll check the continuity tomorrow. Great help gents!

jdjohn

SCompRacer wrote: »

When I rewire an arm, I prefer not to disassemble bearings.

Absolutely. If the tonearm wires are truly pinched in the bearings, hopefully they will come loose fairly easily, without a lot of 'encouragement', or having to disassemble the bearings in order to get them out.

newbie308

If the arm does require disassembly, take digital photos as you go and count the turns on any bearing fasteners! I usually place them on some white paper with notes for where they belong and how many turns it took to remove them. If you don't mind putting sharpie alignment marks on screws and jam nuts, they really help with getting adjustments back where they were and the ink is easily removed from most surfaces with denatured alcohol.

SCompRacer

Just an FYI, Analog Magik does FR rebuilds. While they refer to the FR-64S / FR-66S, your arm situation could be similar.

"The old FR tonearm wire has a jacket that is over 50 yrs old, and very often it breaks at the 90-degree bend at the bearing. We see this very often with FR rebuilds. The jacket material also hardened over time, some literally break off like bread crumbs. "

They also mention the bearing grease dries causing bearings to seize.



https://www.analogmagik.com/fr64s

engie490

I have continuity! I rechecked the DIN cable and I just wasn't pushing nearly hard enough. It took a lot more force to go on to this arm than the SAEC arm I removed.

Someone over at AudioKarma has one of these arms and suggested that I remove the metal sticker for the height increment on the pillar. It took some doing, but I got it off. Underneath there are 3 grub screws. The top 2 were loose on his and causing vertical play.

But mine seemed to be properly seated. I loosened them and pulled the pivot up and found another screw at the back of the arm. I had to unscrew the endstub and the counterweight to get to it. I tightened it and put everything back together. There's almost no play now.

Hopefully, I'll get it remounted tomorrow and see what happens. Fingers crossed!!!!

pitdogg2

🤞

engie490

Hooray! The arm now "floats". I remounted it and I got sound.

HOWEVER...it mistracks after a couple of revolutions. I've been fiddling with the anti-skating and the lateral balance weight to no avail. I swapped out the headshell/cart and even the DIN cable in case that was binding underneath the table.

I held the arm up and swung horizontally across the record but couldn't discern anything but smooth movement.

jdjohn

How's the VTA? Is the tonearm parallel to the surface of the record when playing? Check to see if the arm is rubbing against the cue lift bar, creating friction that prevents the tonearm from moving freely laterally. Sometimes the height of that cue lift bar/platform needs to be lowered/raised when installed on a different turntable.

engie490

jdjohn wrote: »

How's the VTA? Is the tonearm parallel to the surface of the record when playing? Check to see if the arm is rubbing against the cue lift bar, creating friction that prevents the tonearm from moving freely laterally. Sometimes the height of that cue lift bar/platform needs to be lowered/raised when installed on a different turntable.

I have the arm parallel to the record and cue bar is not touching the arm. Everything looks correct. I've gone over the setup instructions manual several times and no change.

I'm really mystified...unless I messed things up by tightening that one screw?

newbie308

I had a similar problem with my SME3009 when I first installed it. It was a case of the pivot bearing being too tight. It was imperceptible when I tried to manually rotate it, but the needle kept skipping no matter how much I adjusted anti skate and tracking force. I backed off the nut that tensions the bearings about 1/8 to 1/4 turn and the problem went away completely.

SeleniumFalcon

"I'm really mystified...unless I messed things up by tightening that one screw?"

That would be my guess.

engie490

SeleniumFalcon wrote: »

"I'm really mystified...unless I messed things up by tightening that one screw?"

That would be my guess.

I'm going to step away for a couple of days and get back this issue over the weekend.

SeleniumFalcon

I've always found that a good way to test a tonearm for lateral and vertical friction is to first very carefully neutral balance the counterweight so the arm floats (with stylus guard in place). Once done the arm should move sideways when pushed by a soft breath of air. Or, a single bristle from a soft brush pushed against the side of the head shell should be enough to move it. For vertical movement use the same bristle to lightly touch the top of the head shell.
For what it's worth the Fidelity Research arm and matching cartridge are, in my semi-humble opinion, among the best sounding ever made.

engie490

I exposed the screw again and loosened it slightly, but the arm doesn’t float as well now. Still mistracking (stays in same groove).

On a happier note I was able to temporarily mount my VPI 12.5 arm on the SP-15. It works great!

The guy I bought it from found a 12.7 base and rewired a 12.5 arm with discovery wire for a continuous run from tags to RCAs. The external wire is kinda rough looking, but the sound is definitely not.

jdjohn

A Technics SP-15 with a VPI 12.5 arm is on a totally different level, so I would say just enjoy that to its full extent.

engie490

jdjohn wrote: »

A Technics SP-15 with a VPI 12.5 arm is on a totally different level, so I would say just enjoy that to its full extent.

That's the plan. I'm having a 2-arm plinth made for the SP-15 and planning to use the VPI arm and an Alfred Bokrand Ortofon AS-309. Like this one:



But, I also have:

Audioquest PT-6
Fidelity Research FR-14
Grado Signature Laboratory Standard
Jelco 10.5S
Origin Live Encounter Mk 2
SAEC WE-308SX
Stax UA-7cf
Victor UA-7082

I'm interested in comparing the WE-308 SX with the modified Ortofon. I want one of the 2 arms to have a removable headshell so I can use my my integrated headshell carts (Ortofon SPU, Fidelity Research FR-7, Ikeda 9C2, and Sony XL55Pro), which also happen to be pretty heavy.

Eventually, I'm looking to sell off these arms to finance this plan and because I don't need a tonearm museum. Besides, I'm sure someone else can make use of them. Which is why I'd like to figure out what is ailing the FR-14.

engie490

jdjohn wrote: »

A Technics SP-15 with a VPI 12.5 arm is on a totally different level, so I would say just enjoy that to its full extent.

That's what I was thinking. I'm having a 2-arm plinth made for the SP-15 and I plan to use the VPI arm and an Alfred Bokrand AS-309, which looks like this:



However, I still have the following tonearms sitting around:

Audioquest PT-6
Fidelity Research FR-14
Grado Laboratory Signature (not the wooden one)
Jelco 10.5S
Origin Live Encounter Mk 2
SAEC WE-308SX
Stax UA-7cf
Victor UA-7082

I want one of the arms to have a removable headshell and be able to support heavier cartridges. I have an Ortofon SPU-GE, Ikeda 9C2, Fidelity Research FR-7, and Sony XL-55 Pro that I would like to use with that arm.

I may end up having a bit of a shootout between the AS-309 and the WE-308 to see which one stays.

The rest of the lot will be sold off to finance the plan. Thus, I would like to figure out what is ailing the FR-14 (if I can).

newbie308

I don't recall ever seeing that many quality arms in one place. That would be really cool to see all those arms displayed together

bikerboy

When you get to thinking about unloading a tonearm that works well with my low compliance denon let me know. I need to repair the arm on my Nottingham table and it will be a while to get that done. I can use 2 arms with this deck. Looks like you will have this arm working well again soon.

jdjohn

Impressive collection!