I have 3 arm wands and would like to know which models they are, whether they use Discovery or Valhalla wire, and if I can get the effective mass of each. Thanks for the help
You are correct! The 3DR looks like one of the limited special colors and the wire is Nordost Reference. That has an Effective Mass of 10.5g
The metal ones both appear to be Discovery as it had the thinnest weive. Those both should have an effective of about 12.2g. The one with the Grey on the outside was when we had put the dampening on the outside rather then inside the arm tube.
Hope that helps with a bit more insight on these arms and let me know if you have any additional questions.
The two metal arm are the most recent version of the JMW 12 series with some slight variance due to their manufacturing run. You can tell by the headshell stamp “Classic” which is when VPI moved away from “dot” series nomenclature i.e. 12.6 etc., and the all stainless steel bearing bell. Each metal arm has the two piece ferrule system where the arm tube enters the bearing bell, which denotes the Signature version of the Classic. Both arms are wired with standard Discovery wire. The arm with the Classic 4 stamp, has a stainless steel arm tube (standard is aluminum) for increased effective mass. These are great metal tonearms - VPI’s best.
The 3D printed arm is the JMW 12-3DR. The “R” = Reference which means it has a faux carbon fibre damping wrap and is wired with Nordost Reference wire (same wire as used in Fatboy). The arm also includes a piggy back weight on the main counterweight used for fine vtf tuning. Very desirable.
Great info! I’ve read some of Sherry’s post on Facebook, she is a very smart person who always backs up her posts with physics and science. I believe that she is a mechanical engineer.
This is from the email Mat sent me.
"Hey Joel,
You are correct! The 3DR looks like one of the limited special colors and the wire is Nordost Reference. That has an Effective Mass of 10.5g
The metal ones both appear to be Discovery as it had the thinnest weive. Those both should have an effective of about 12.2g. The one with the Grey on the outside was when we had put the dampening on the outside rather then inside the arm tube.
Hope that helps with a bit more insight on these arms and let me know if you have any additional questions.
Mat
From Sherry Fraser on Facebook.
"This is what you have.
The two metal arm are the most recent version of the JMW 12 series with some slight variance due to their manufacturing run. You can tell by the headshell stamp “Classic” which is when VPI moved away from “dot” series nomenclature i.e. 12.6 etc., and the all stainless steel bearing bell. Each metal arm has the two piece ferrule system where the arm tube enters the bearing bell, which denotes the Signature version of the Classic. Both arms are wired with standard Discovery wire. The arm with the Classic 4 stamp, has a stainless steel arm tube (standard is aluminum) for increased effective mass. These are great metal tonearms - VPI’s best.
The 3D printed arm is the JMW 12-3DR. The “R” = Reference which means it has a faux carbon fibre damping wrap and is wired with Nordost Reference wire (same wire as used in Fatboy). The arm also includes a piggy back weight on the main counterweight used for fine vtf tuning. Very desirable.
I hope this helps."
This is shared for the good of the community.