Its performance from midrange to treble is just outstanding. To be precise, said ruby balls had been replaced by stainless steel balls, so neither of my two EPA-100 can be called to be in original condition anymore.Ĭonsidering all that money spent and hassle with the fragile construction, is this tonearm worth the effort? Well simply, yes! The EPA-100 presents some sort of transparency and effortless musical flow, that only a few tonearms can deliver. I learned my lesson: ruby bearings are very fragile, but spare parts are available from Technics SP1210 tonearm, and thus tonearm service is possible and not that expensive. Now I had two tonearms repaired by the same guy. This tonearm came back with a picture documentation of defects burnt on a CD. After 5 weeks, my first tonearm came back from Mr Groezinger, which was much faster than anticipated. Coincidently, that tonearm had been overhauled before by said repair workshop. Eventually, a second EPA-100 showed up in Germany, and I bought also that tonearm. In diverse places, there are warnings that waiting for a repair can be very long at this place. Luckily, I had seen Mr Groezinger's tonearm repair page, and decided to send the tonearm for a complete overhaul. The armrest was broken, the antiskating wheel was blocked, and the bearings had a certain feeling of discontinuity.
Originally, the EPA-100 tonearm was to complement the Technics SP-10 turntable. With an effective length of 250mm (or 10 inch) and a mounting hole of 38mm diameter it is almost a drop-in replacement for my Fidelity Research FR-64S mounted in B-60 VTA base.
VTA on the fly, flexible SME headshell, titanium arm wand, nearly frictionless bearings, the buzz words made this tonearm very attractive.
How to mount an sme tonearm on technics sl110a full#
The finish will be bird's eye maple for the top, surrounded by a 1/4" trim strip of wenge, with the sides of santos rosewood.īefore deciding the dimensions of the base, I laid out the design full scale on paper, including the tonearm I planned to use: a 12 inch SME 312S.Technics EPA-100 Mk2 - tonearm Technics Technical Masterpiece Īpprox cost: around 700 EUR for good samples ( YMMV) The top layer of baltic birch would be cut to mount the arm, and a cavity would be cut out below the arm for access to the cable and to mount the arm. I wanted to avoid the extra mechanical joint created by a separate armboard, and to me, the base also looks more finished without a separate armboard. Layout-wise, I decided that this was to be a dedicated base for the SP-10 and an SME 312S arm combination. The base also contains a 10 pound steel bar, coupled to the SP-10 bearing via brass rod, as a motor noise drain. The latter was glued in with a soft glue to provide some additional damping.
Based in part on the work by Albert Porter, whose bases are here, and described here, I used 5 layers of baltic birch, with one layer of MDF. I considered a number of options for a plinth, but being a bit of a woodworker, I decided to build one myself, primarily using multiple layers of baltic birch plywood. See the accompanying record cabinet here. This webpage is a continuation of my SP-10 refurb project, here.