Grace 714 Tonearm Woes

Hello all,

The forum says that I've been awarded a four year trophy, but while I've often browsed through the site I have never asked a question.

I have a Grace 714 tonearm that I like very much. I'm running an old Grado Signature 2 on it (with a brand new stylus) and it sounds and performs well on my Linn LP12. The problem is this: I heard some persistent feedback on one channel when lifting the headshell and assumed that there was a faulty ground connection. I went to adjust the plug, and one of the five pins snapped clean off the din connector. A little nub of pin is caught inside with about 1 mm sticking above. I still have the rest of the pin.

I tried to remove the offending nub with a soldering iron and a needle nose pliers, but did not succeed.

I'm open to suggestions, and would rather send this to a professional. I'm open to rewiring the entire thing, as it's a nice arm. Michael at Britaudio has already passed, as he doesn't rewire Grace tonearms. A place in the US would be best, to avoid exorbitant fees. I'll happily spend a few hundred dollars to get a full rewire, but would also be open to a quick fix of just the plug. Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

I have a 714 on a Thorens TD-126. It's a nice sounding arm.

I've never attempted to rewire mine, and I would not be inclined to try it personally. Perhaps it might be possible to replace the connector on the arm with a new connector rather than to try to fix the connector? Or, failing that, you could always remove the connector and just hard-wire the RCA cable of your choice to it.

 

Thanks for your reply. Replacing the connector certainly seems possible, but I don't have any confidence in my ability to do this work. Those wires are like angel hair, and I know that I'd have to re-solder the connections to a replacement connector. I reached out to Steven Leung at VAS Cartridge Repair, who seems to have the skills required to fix the connector. If he can't find a Grace DIN, I'll get him to install something else. And I'm going to have him rewire the tonearm while he's at it. Throwing a few hundred dollars at this problem will hurt my pocket, but I'll be satisfied if it fixes the original grounding problem and (dare I say) upgrades the sound.

That said, I'm annoyed that this wasn't an easier fix.

 

You can do that of course. But if you are already planning to send it off to get fixed, then what's the harm in trying to hard-wire a good cable to your arm? If you fail, you get it rewired anyways. So, as I see it, there is nothing to lose in trying.

The big thing that you need is a magnifying desk-lamp to work under.

 

This is a great suggestion. I'll quote your response when I explain to my wife why I need a workbench.

 

Can you explain this more completely? There is 1 mm of the broken pin exposed at the bottom of the tonearm base, but you can't grab on to it with a needlenose?

 

Yes, the din coming off the Grace tonearm is male, and one of the pins snapped. Each of the pins seems to have been soldered in place. Talking with Steven, it seems that the original Grace din was female. Someone may have soldered these pins in place at some point to make it male. In any case, the tiny nub won't budge, even when I grab it and pull while applying the soldering iron. I might just be lacking the right tools or technique.

 

Ok, just so I understand, would the plug on this cable be workable?
HIGH END TONEARM PHONO CABLE FOR GRACE 704 707 714 AND MORE CARDAS 5 PIN | eBay

Or, would you need the opposite, i.e. female?

 

I think that this would be the right thing if the tonearm were stock. But someone modified it so the tonearm din is male, not female, soldering pins into the female conector. It's a mess, so I'm going to have Steven swap out the Grace connector for something else.