Magnetic tonearm prototype – Reed Mag

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Magnetic tonearm prototype – Reed Mag

Probably it’s time to talk about what was keeping us busy for last year; actually we were designing, building and testing our newest creation – “magnetic” tonearm prototype, called Reed Mag.

This model features magnetic antiskating technology which eliminates the possible noises brought up by the traditional mechanical antiskating. Moreover, it has possibility to change a character of antiskating force (i.e. force can be different or constant depending on the cartridge’s distance from the center of the disk).

Also we introduced the dynamic magnetic damper to absorb tonearm’s vertical motion. The damping helps out a lot if you are listening to LPs which are slightly warped (if not stored properly, all vinyls may become warped sooner or later).

Damper’s operation is based on Lenz’s Law, when a neodymium magnet (located at enough distance from the wires to prevent various interferences) moves in a silver-plated pure copper tube. The damping coefficient is set to 3:1, which means that the tonearm’s free oscillation stopping time is three times bigger compared to the damped one. The damping force depends on the tonearms motion acceleration. With currently available cartridges, the damping coefficient exceeding 5:1 can result in sound distortion.

Reed Mag will also retain compatibility with our laser-based azimuth/VTA adjustment system. Despite it is currently only a prototype, it has bright prospects to become a member of our Reed family and set a parallel trend in our antiskating techniques.

Below are some lab pictures of Reed Mag.

 

Reed Mag tonearm lab

 

Reed Mag tonearm lab

 

Reed Mag tonearm lab

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