How riskly are "nude" cartridges if you have poor eye-hand coordination

Posted by: Jaybar on 26 April 2001

I am on the verge of switching from my Arkiv (lINN tt, eKOS, Lingo, Linto) to a Lyra. I have rather poor eye-hand coordination and sight in one eye. Sometimes I mess-up on the cueing and the arm goes dancing across and hits the spindle. I have never broken a canteliever, but I have never had a "nude" cartridge before. I have had mostly Linn's which are very rugged. How risking would a "nude" one such as the Lyra be for me?

Jay

Posted on: 27 April 2001 by Frank Abela

Jaybar,

I don't believe that you will have any extra risk over your current cartridge. Your issue seems to be with actual use, so the risk is unchanged in this regard.

However, I am assuming that your dealer will be fitting the cartridge. This is where you have much higher risk than with normal cartridges since fitment actually means manhandling of the cartridge itself.

Finally, the bit about the cartridge dancing across the record - are you cueing manually? It seems to me that you may be better off if you use the lift/lower mechanism on the arm. Provided it's up, any movement across is safe. Once you placed the cartridge in the appropriate place over the record, you just release the armlift and it will settle nicely into place. This should be a safer modus operandi than manual operation and it's almost as quick as manual operation.

Incidentally, I cue manually at work because I have to. At home I always cue using the lift/lower mechanism - it gives me time to sit down before the music starts playing.

Regards,
Frank.