Rowe AMi late style tone arms

[Ron Rich]

Hi All,

Gotta question about the tone arm used in the later Rowe/AMi phonos,models R87-94 at least. There are two magnets attached to the underside the tone arm assembly. One (the smaller), is held in place by a wire tie.The other is held by an aluminum rivet. The smaller one is for the end of record trip-off reed switch--anyone know what the purpose of the larger one iz ??
Thanks !
Ron Rich

[robnyc]

Ron, the one on the side was an anti-skate supposedly to prevent the arm from drifting into the play groves in the instant where the arm is free of the keeper spring on the cam as it hits the lead-in. That, and the mediocre post bearing required the spec of FIVE GRAM tracking. Who the hell required 5g force in the 1980's -a kiddie phono?

I had five of those mechs (R90-91-92)in service in the late eighties-early nineties ALL had problems of getting stuck and wearing lock grooves. I saw these mechs coming back at Manny's and Betson (two big Rowe dist and op's) many had coins taped to the headshell or counterweights run all the way in. I measured what some were tracking at ..how does 13 grams in 1989 sound to you?

S--t engineering. They designed an excellent mech and reliable computer logic, the best ever sound system...and then this crappy tonearm.

The 1100-1220 arm could track perfectly at 1 gram though I use them @ 2g.

BTW: The same anti-skate function was implemented on the earlier mechs in the form of two fingers which stuck up from the mech deck and interacted with the same magnet that actuated the cutoff reed. Those were tricky to set properly (you bend each one with needle nose pliers)but once set they never cause problems.

Rob

[Ron Rich]

Hi Rob,
I ASSUMED that- just never look at the underside of that tone arm before-- this one lost the "wire tie" holding the trip magnet on--talk about cheap, they didn't even use one with a metal catch ! Thanks, Ron Rich