The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Scam? It's five bucks!

Does it work? Maybe. I'm not so sure about improved fidelity because if that were true you wouldn't need different sized styli on worn records on your modern turntable. There's a guy selling a leaf spring for Orthophonic tone arms for $34 that he claims makes it possible to play vinyl 78s and even 45s on your Credenza with no record wear. He seems to have good feedback for it. This appears to be a variant of that.

Years ago I had a Zon O Phone "Home" that had a big long tone arm and horn that put a ton of weight on the needle tip. In studying the design of the arms one day I found that I could attach a VW Super Beetle carburetor return spring in two opposing divots in the design of the fixed arm and traveling arm such that the spring just clipped on- and really lessened the weight without sacrificing sound.When I sold the machine I think one of the selling points was the counter spring- the buyer wrote me back to say he could play records on it without record dust on the needles and he loved it, LOL! He said I did a really good job designing it and lightly yellow cad plating it to match the arms.



Wow, my wife reminded me we did a video- you can sort of see the spring under the horn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_817Jwz-BNk
Sounds pretty damn good, eh?

gramophone-georg wrote:Scam? It's five bucks!

Yea... for a $.49 spring! He takes offers and I was going to put up $4.

Seriously though, it's not the cost. It's that I'm a zealot with religious fervor when it comes to after-market doodads.
I've learned (the hard way) to ask questions before buying magic beans.

The claims seemed plausible but I just wanted to get some reasoned(? ) opinions on its actual usefulness.
The one thought that keeps coming back to me is "If I want Hi-Fi, I should just get a modern turn table" rather than alter the original design with after-market gizmos.

It looks like a 50 cent spring you can get at the hardware store. Look at the packaging with the bar code. Yeah, I think it's a scam. The seller is fishing to see the suckers to be rounded up Then off to the bank.
Harvey Kravitz

But if the seller has gone through the legwork and frustration of going to the box-store, and searching through those pull-out compartment drawers, with all the individually-packaged and "filed-in-the-wrong-slot" parts , is his effort not worth something?

I've looked at this set-up before, and it has sparked my curiosity.

It's not as elegant as the rig with the counter-weight that rests on the goose-neck, but that rig isn't a mere $5 either...

My biggest concern with approaches like this is that continued use might wear away plating / base-metal on the arm.


Has anyone determined an "ideal" tracking weight that is a happy compromise between good tracking and minimizing record wear ?

It's not just any spring from some big box hardware store, it's the CORRECT spring for his "invention". If you want to pay .45 cents for one, then go get your own spring, and then another and another, till you get the correct one. To answer your original question, no, it's not a scam, as long as you get the spring and instructions and it kinda works.

He also includes free domestic shipping for your $5.

This looks like he did a lot of research in this. It does not look like it is not irreversible if it does not work. May temporary put some scotch tape where it will rub during the trial . If it works it will be a great $ 5.00 spent. Tom B

tomb wrote: It does not look like it is not irreversible if it does not work. Tom B

Umm.... so that means it looks as if it's irreversible?

Bill

Lucius1958 wrote:

tomb wrote: It does not look like it is not irreversible if it does not work. Tom B

Umm.... so that means it looks as if it's irreversible?

Bill

Well, a double negative (..."not...not....") is a positive, but a triple negative ("...not...not ir-....")? That's a mind-bender. I guess it means that it is irreversible.