Products we sell ...
Galibier Turntables:
Tonearms:
Cartridges:
Amplification:
Speakers:
Cables/Accessories:
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Technical Support
Manuals
Refer to individual product pages for owners manuals.
Accessories:
- MintLP (opens in new window) -
for the standard in arc style cartridge alignment protractors and other analog accessories.
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Turntable Basics (opens in new window) -
Purveyors of a reasonably priced cartridge alignment protractor.
This is the best of the currently available two point protractors we've found. Order the standard spindle hole size (.282) version
for Galibier turntables.
Cartridge Retipping
- Soundsmith
(opens in new window) - Hopefully, you'll need their services later rather than
sooner, but we've heard both Peter Ledderman's strain cartridge as well as his incredible rework of a Benz LP, and we give
his work our highest recommendation.
Tape Splicing Resources ...
Tape Splicing Blocks:
While we are advocates of using as wide and stiff a belt as your turntable will
accommodate, we realize that some who are reading this page have a drive system which
is only capable of using an audio cassette width belt or at a maximum, one which can
handle 1/4" wide tape.
We understand that the Radio Shack splicing block (for cassette and 3/8" wide tape)
has been discontinued. Individual stores may still have some in stock (part #44-224).
To splice wider tapes, up to and including 1/2" VCR tape, the link to the following
sites:
For an interesting story on the use of the EditAll by one of the masters - Harold Lawrence
(of Mercury Living Presence fame) - link to a segment of his biography in the
Journal of Recorded Music (opens in new window).
Belt Materials:
There re two options:
- VCR tape - face the shiny side toward the platter - YES ... the shiny side !!
- Mylar tape - functionally equivalent to VCR tape, but better performing - if you use the holographice variety which
is thicker than VCR tape (and thus stiffer).
Note that the holographic variety is a bit stiffer as well as being slightly wider
than 1/2". This presents some problems for splicers like the TAC. The Marker-Tek
splicer will work with this wide, stiff tape by using it like a manual
splicing block - substituting a single-edged razor for the built in cutter.
Arm and Cartridge Setup
Note: There is a wealth of useful setup information in the links below.
We remind you that our setup manuals and hints live on their respective product (turntable and tonearm) pages.
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A spreadsheet to calculate the
cartridge loading (opens in new window) with moving coil step-up transformers.
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Cartridge loading theory (opens in new window) and
how to do it (opens in new window) by John Chapman of Bent Audio.
We need to ask John where his links to these two great pages went.
- More on
Cartridge loading theory (opens in new window) by Jim Hagerman of Hagerman Technology.
- A spreadsheet to calculate the
resonant frequency (opens in new window) of an arm and cartridge combination.
Note - these numbers should serve only as a guideline. We've seen combinations which should not work according to the numbers
which do, as well as the reverse situation (those which should work and which don't). Ultimately, your experimentation, a test
record such as the Hi Fi & News Report Test Record) along with your ears (and if you'r lucky, a set of tonearm counterbalance weights
with different masses), should be the final arbiter.
If your browser doesn't display the sheet, return to this page and "right-click" on the above link.
Select "Save Target As..." or it's equivalent.
Note that Column E is a protected column. Protection has been turned on for the entire
spreadsheet to prevent accidental erasure of the equation in column E. To add more rows using cut and
paste, first turn protection off.
For this sample spreadsheet, a Moerch arm was used with one row for each of the 4 arm tube
masses offered (from 3.8 to 13.1 gms). Most of the fixed mass arms in current production have an
effective mass in the range of 10 grams.
The object is to place the arm cartridge resonant frequency in the 10-12 Hz range. Realize that
cartridges, like any other manufactured device have sample to sample variance. The published
compliance figures should be used as a point of departure. Use a record like the Hi Fi News and
Record Review setup disk to empirically measure the resonance. If your resonant frequency ends up
being too high, this is an opportunity to increase the mass of the system by adding the damping
compound of choice under the headshell.
The equation applied is:
Resonant Frequency = 1 / [ 2 * pi * sqrt(M * C) ]
where:
M = the sum of the effective mass of the tonearm and the weight of the cartridge
C = the compliance of the cartridge.
- An analysis of
linear tracking tonearm geometry (opens in new window) and setup.
- The
Cartridge Database (opens in new window) - this link is currently dead,
but we leave this entry here as a reminder to watch for the reappearance of this great resource.
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Turntable System Setup (opens in new window) - Laura Dearborn.
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Beginner's Guide to Cartridge Setup (opens in new window) - Andrew Chasin.
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Setting Up Your FIRST Cartridge (opens in new window) - by Thorsten Loesch.
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Tweaking your Record-Player (opens in new window) - J. Gordon Holt, July 1990. Never in his
wildest dreams could he imagine how many choices there would be in analog a decade after this article was published.
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Understanding The Issues Behind Cartridge Alignment (opens in new window) - Gary Markowitz.
Other Stuff
Projects
Check our Shelf and stand FAQs page for plans to build this sandbox, and view the one
we had commissioned for a customer in our Accessories Section.
Miscellaneous Links
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PDF version can be viewed here
(opens in new window)