What’s the viscosity of the fluid in case we need to top up or refill? .... My bad found it it’s 60k CST.
hi there! Would you happen to have a pic of your black damper with your table? I’m curious on how the finish on the black mates with the tone arm and table.
Last question - just emailed KAB regarding shipping. The damper shows up as a .3 lb (roughly 5 ounces) package, but shipping is close to $16. Does that sound about right? I emailed asking if there is an alternate lower cost shipping, maybe the site auto charges based on value of item, a little thing shouldn’t be more than $10 through USPS.
No worries! I must have read it wrong, I thought you had a silver 1200gr. I emailed Kevin asking him about the finish and he replied the really shiny silver one on the site is the older 1200 damper. The new silver one for the new models is a matte finish, non shiny. He recommended and thought it looked most aesthetically uniform to match the silver with silver and black with black, so once I resolve this shipping thing I’ll snag the silver for my gr
Heard back from Kevin - shipping offered at $7.60 USPS priority Silver is ordered! Looking forward to checking out on the GR.
USPS priority for the win! Shipped out Tuesday, received and installed today Build quality is IMPRESSIVE. Based on the pics online I thought the thing was plastic, it is one finely piece of machined metal. Directions were solid but I do have some points I plan on recommending to Kevin. As you can see, cosmetically it is a perfect match in my opinion with the GR. The directions say to fill the trough halfway, however, when you are in the process of filling the thing, it can be visually difficult to actually determine where the halfway point is. Before installing, I made a little pencil mark around the halfway point in the trough which I’m super glad I did. Even better, it couldn’t be that hard for Kevin to have a little halfway line mark placed as part of the machining process. Also, there should be a note reminding users to recheck your VTF after installation. I’m sure this is obvious to others since you are installing the little paddle over the cue arm support, but I’m glad I did as that little part appeared to add about 0.3g. Sonically, nothing is jumping out at me yet, which may mean my current arm cart combo is pretty solid, combined with the majority of my listening is on most well pressed flat and centered audiophile jazz mostly of the music matters persuasion. Maybe a slightly tighter and more focused center image, otherwise I’ll need to give more time and see if I can pull out some torture tests.
I have a Technics SL1200 GR and am serious about getting the KAB Damper but even from the pics that I see I can't tell if the fluid trough obscures the VTA dial reference notch. Has this been a problem for anyone?
Yes, you need to use the edge of the trough as pointer instead of the pointer/notch on the tonearm base, or use the bar on which the tonearm clip is mounted. It's not a big deal once you know in which position zero is.
Thanks Oelewapper. That was my only concern. I think my Benz Micro Glider will benefit from the KAB damper. No matter what I do this cartridge gets a little excited with the Technics arm. I have to also set my anti-skate much higher than normal because the cartridge/arm wants to slam into the first track when letting the arm down to play. Any thoughts?
Open reservoir of viscous fluid on the table because one can't use the cuing lever as it comes? Sorry, don't get it.
It dampens the effects of tonearm resonance and makes the tonearm compatible with a wider range of cartridge compliance, higher compliances in particular.
Thanks. I guess my system isn't revealing enough or my vinyl good enough that I'd notice. I have yet to hear any tonearm resonance in my GR. I don't know my cart sits on the compliance scale (VM95ML).
I also have the Benz Micro Glider SL, that one performs much better with the damper indeed, same goes for the 2M Black. However, when using the damper in combination with Concorde type cartridges, the result can be disappointing. The hopping on the run-in edge of vinyl is reduced by the damper, but with vinyl type that has some additional thickness to the edge (depends on the type of pressing - unable to recollect the name of that type) it is still common. I have tried to optimize anti-skating for multiple cartridges by using a test record and found that I also need to set anti-skating higher than recommended by the manual. There seems to be a correlation between the stylus profile and anti-skating. I have some old conical and spherical DJ styli that don't need the additional anti-skating force.
Thanks again. I had no problem with the Glider on a Rega RB300 but got it retipped just before getting the Technics and it's a different stylus profile (micro-ridge). It doesn't behave well on the Technics arm. That's why I was looking at the KAB Damper, I thought it would help with this and maybe other cartridges I may obtain in the future.
So, why does the Glider act this way with this tonearm? Is it just not a good match? Because to get it to act normally when setting the cartridge down on the lead-in area I have to set the A/S to the highest setting of 3. The recommended tracking force is 1.9 grams. I've never had a cartridge do this before. The tt is level. The cartridge is perfectly aligned, at least to my eye. The VTF is set to optimum. VTA is parallel to the platter. If I set the A/S to a normal setting which I believe to be equal to the VTF or below the arm/cartridge wants to fly towards the spindle sometimes skipping into the first track. Increasing VTF had no effect. My other cartridge is an Ortofon MC Rondo Red. The VTF is set at 2.5 g and the A/S is set at 1.5 with no problems. Same Technics headshell is being used for both. Are you saying that the tonearm fluid damper will have no effect on this action? I've posted this on the Audiogon forums and got many replies but none that helped or made any sense.
The damper will most likely have an effect. It seems to me though that the tip of the needle have a bit of problems.
My favorite feature of the damper - is handling albums with skips. I have two new albums that have an area where the record skips - Earth Wind And Fire - Live and Iggy Pop/Stooges Raw Power. These two albums WITH damping in place no longer skip. I even added silicon damping to my VPI Classic (I'm fortunate enough to have a VPI arm that supports Damping) and that also resolved the skipping issue for these two albums. I'm installing DL103 next - which on the Technics requires a bunch of things - Damping one of them. I highly recommend it - a fun thing to tweak and play with that enhances the hobby for me based on empirical evidence (skip resolution in my case.)
Do you think the retip I had done on the Glider is having an effect? If so, how? The original tip was an elliptical and the new one a micro-ridge. I'm only asking because I don't understand how it could make a difference. Unless, it wasn't installed properly? It sounds ok but a little on the bright side. Maybe I should sell the Glider to someone who has a tonearm more suited to it. I've had it on a Audioquest PT tonearm. A Bluenote U3 tonearm. And, Rega Rb300. All with the original stylus profile and had no problems.
If You lower the arm by hand You can get a feeling for how different records behave. And if by hand works better
Oys It's likely your AS dial is 'off'. The numbers mean nothing. Calibrate using inner dead wax so the run-out spiral *just* catches up to the needle.
