Here
is my new tonearm Sometimes
ago I showed to my local audio-friend an absurd looking old Russian tonearm
that Russkies made somewhere in 70s. The friend of
mind, the MIT-type person, look at the tonearm, then look at me and asked me very
seriously: “Romy, are you sure that this is not a peace
of the Chernobyl Reactor and are you sure the this thing is not radioactive?”
We were laughing for quite some time after the joke, but the tonearms got it’s permanent American name -
"The Chernobyl Spinnaker” I
own this tonearm for a while and recently decided to put it in use… The
tonearm was initially designed by Leningrad’s designer A. Likhnitsky
as a part of “Korvet” turntable. The tonearm, like
many other things made or designed by Russians, has some interesting ides
alongside with completely foolish and irrational ideas, not to mention the
typically-horrible implementation. The
tonearm has knife-edge VTF bearing, ball-bearing horizontal,
adjustably-magnetic decoupling from the bottom, spring-managed antiskating
and VTFs settings. Everything in there is well-considered, and designed very
economically or I would very frugally. The damping is the most interesting
things in this tonearm. At the pivot line there is a large, attached to the wand,
hermetic sphere filed with glycerin. Inside of the sphere there is another
sphere that is not attached to anything and that floating freely in the
glycerin. According to Likhnitsky a moment that
take place at the end of the tonearm gets transmitted to out-sphere and
reduced by the tension between the inner-sphere and out-sphere (kind of
gyroscope effect). Presumably, the masses of the spheres, the amount and
viscosity of the glycerin and the distances between the spheres are properly
set. Likhnitsky clams that this type of damping
provides minus 10dB at 9hz compare to any other damping methods. I have to tell honestly that I am not particularly subscribe
what Likhnitsky proclaims and I have heard a number
of inconsistencies from him, including the inconsistencies about the given
tonearm. In addition, I have no idea how all those theories manifest
themselves sonically. Do not ask me also how the Moon’s gravity affects the
performance of this tonearm creating the tides within it or what will happen
if you drain the glycerin and fill the tonearm with 30 years old Scotch
Whisky. I’m pretty much a user of this thing, or a casualty in a way… I
certainly was not able to used
the tonearm “as is” because too many things in there were way below any
criticism. I decided to invest efforts and to see if I would be able to use
the good ideas that “Korvet” had. I changed all
wires, put a new headshell, put a new 12” graphite
wand, added adjustable contra-mass on back, designed and machined a
VTA-adjustable base, made my Micro-suitable arm-board, changed both top and
bottom bearings, replaced the bottom magnet assembly (I manufactured the
exact replica of that Likhnitsky had only with a
highest level of precision), got rid within the arm whatever I considered
unnecessary. The entire projects cost ~$500, winch is 50 time more than the
price of the arm… Another
mystery story about the “Korvet” arm is that the
Russians had some problems during manufacturing of those arms and as a result
most of the tonarms were manufactured defective….
without the inner-sphere. I made a bunch of the experiment trying to figure
out if my arm has the inner-sphere. My tonearm’s ball does not spins on a table (similar to none-boiled egg) and when I
shake it then “something going on” inside. Eventually a friend of mine
X-rayed the sphere. Even
looking at the images I can’t figure out what is going on. Obviously
there is a second sphere inside, however I was under impression that the
distance between the spheres should be smaller… Now,
I officially closed the project, placed the arm in my TT and will be doing
some listening during December. I will announce the results of the listings
but for now I could not resist do not post the images of this ugly but in a
way gorgeous duckling. I
always said that a quality of a tonearm generally could be determined by how
long I might listen it before I trash it and replace it with 3012. I hope
that the reincarnated Likhnitsky’s “Korvet”, or my “Chernobyl Spinnaker”, will be able to
resist… 11 December 2004 |