The outrigger carries a second composite ‘sub-weight’, half of which is fixed to the off-set arm, while the other half runs on a horizontal thread, providing easy and extremely fine adjustment of tracking force. A locking thumb wheel allows you to set the rotational resistance and then fix the preferred setting. The thumb screw can be replaced with a second, heavier weight, should you want to increase the total mass of the counterweight, to accommodate a heavier cartridge or move it closer to the pivot point to aid tracking. The off-set ‘sub-weight’ means that the locking grub screw that fixes the main assembly runs in a groove cut in the counterweight stub in order to stop the outrigger falling to the underside of the arm. The low-slung position places the counterweight’s centre of gravity lower, aiding tracing performance.
Once again, this dual-weight arrangement is shared with the Kuzma 4Point arms – in concept if not in detail – and it’s just as welcome here as it is there.
The bare necessities…
Unlike some tonearms, the Enterprise offers a full suite of purely practical facilities and functionality. You get an arm-rest – far from a given these days – and a secondary clip to lock the arm in place. You get an effective cueing device. You get a proper, dedicated, low capacitance arm-lead. It uses a hybrid silver copper construction and pays serious attention to those details that really matter, when you are dealing with the tiny signals generated by a modern MC cartridge. The low-mass cartridge tags are passivated silver-plated for optimum signal transmission. The cable is available with a straight entry or right-angle entry Din connector at the business-end and lightweight, gold over Tellurium copper RCA plugs to connect to your phono-stage. OL also offer a Tonearm Burn-in Cable for the princely sum of £30 https://www.originlive.com/shop/burn-in-cable.html. Essentially a patch lead with RCAs on one end and a set of four cartridge pins on the other, you hook it up to your headshell tags, connect the tonearm leads to a line-input and away you go. Run a CD level signal through your tonearm wiring for a day or two and just listen to the difference! If you are buying an Origin Live arm, I thoroughly recommend adding the Burn-in lead to your order. In fact, if you own a record player, just order one anyway. The chances are that your tonearm leads aren’t even close to burnt in and while you could build your own adaptor, it’s so much easier to use an off the shelf device.
I’ve already mentioned the mounting tool, but OL also supply all of the allen-keys necessary to mount and set up the arm. In a clear indication of their UK past, they also supply bolts for the Linn collar (if you order one) sized for the LP12 armboard and a new P-clip. This small, plastic item might confuse modern purchasers, but all you need to know is that it’s an essential component in the legendary process that is dressing an LP12’s arm-cable. The arm arrives with a wooden chock and O-ring retainer spacing the needle bearings from their thrust cups. It’s reusable and a nice touch when so many manufacturers rely on a bit of foam packing to do the same job. Just as effective, it doesn’t transmit the same sense of care and attention to detail that a purpose cut piece does.
