Swapping out mounting hardware is simplicity itself: make sure the existing bolts are tight, record the tracking force and then simply replace them, one at a time, thus maintaining the cartridge alignment. Just remember to adjust the VTF and bear in mind that even if the value on your stylus balance is the same, finer tuning by ear will still almost certainly be necessary.
I started by replacing the 6mm mounting bolts fixing the Fuuga to the Kuzma 4Point14 on the GPA Monaco, a step that required a major revision in VTF. Ultimately it was a big enough difference to reconstitute the composition of the modular counterweight on the 4Point14, although for the direct comparisons I lived with removing one weight disc and an extreme setting on the rider weight. Even so I wasn’t ready for the readily audible differences heard. From the moment the stylus hit the groove, you could hear a quieter, blacker background. The opening guitar licks of ‘Listen To The Radio’ (Nanci Griffith, Storms – the MCA/Alto AA 004 180g re-press) had greater attack, presence and immediacy, were more focussed and precisely located. Griffith’s voice gained the same boost in presence, focus and dimensionality, her diction and phrasing clearer, more articulate and more natural. The backing vocals were better separated, spatially and tonally. The bass gained pitch definition and mobility. Letting the record run, the opening notes of ‘Leaving The Harbour’ rammed home the bottom end gains in pace and dynamic definition , a realisation reinforced by the solid underpinnings of ‘Radio Fragile’.
These improvements in clarity, dynamic range and resolution are far from the whole story. The upbeat rhythms and flirty insouciance of ‘Listen To The Radio’ suggest how that extra information adds to the musical and expressive picture, but a song like ‘Drive In Movies And Dashboard Lights’ takes that expressive range to a whole new level. This isn’t schmaltzy or sentimental – it’s a harsh dose of reality dressed up in bobby socks, prom dresses and tail fins. The hard slap of the drums, the strike and attack of the piano back up and propel the unflinching honesty and bittersweet melancholy of the vocal. The clarity and timing of the drum-beats, the shape, articulation and fingering of the bass notes right across the album give it a motive quality, adding to the sense of musical purpose and communication, adding to the heartfelt and personal intimacy of the lyrics and their delivery.
The benefits of these bolts really are just nuts! Furthermore, they extend across all records and genres. Víkingur Ólafsson’s Debussy-Rameau (DGG 483 8283) gains poise, delicacy and a natural precision, greater clarity to the weight of the notes, their placement and the spaces between them. It’s far more affective as a result, more beautiful but also more plangent in the slower passages, more dashing and brilliant, more fluid and effervescent in the quicker parts. I could run through more examples but you get the picture. More importantly, do the benefits translate across other arm/cartridge combinations. The 14” Kuzma is heavier than your average tonearm, the Fuuga a heavier, lower compliance load with an unusually solid construction, making mechanical termination particularly important. Is this just a case of a happy coincidence – circumstance combining to produce an outlier result?
