Hi, George

First off all I have to mention that I use Max 282 as my “second” arm. I mean my best stereo cartridge I use with 3012 as I feel that it has more interesting lover bass and upper bass then 282. The 282 has slightly hollow and slightly bore dry bass then I would like to. I work responsibly well with my Onyx and SPU the have slightly overly-romantic and overly moistured upper bass but with “neutral” cartridges (whatever it means) the 282 sound too North German to my taste.

George wrote:

I am using the fixed headshell "pipe." Have you found any workarounds to set the azimuth? One could use the J-arm with an adjustable azimuth headshell as an alternative.

George, I have all those pipes and as I remember all of then have adjustable azimuth even if the headshell is not removable. Also, I feel that the fixed headshell straight "pipes" are to light for Koetsus and I loaded them with quite a lot of extra mass. However I tend generally to use much more heavier arms then it usually consider “a good match” by the ordinary “audiophile wisdom”.

George wrote:

My arm came without a damping through and the pipes without damping arrows. I was able to purchase a an original through later. Is is worth the effort to try and make an arrow for my setup?

It is hard to say. Since I use more affective mass then it should be the default surface of the damping arrow is not enough for me. Therefore I use more viscous oil of even used silicon a few times, though it is too stiff for the sq mm of the default damping arrow, even if it submerge very shallow. The effect that I got form the oil damping was also very different, depends of the compliance of the cartridges and few other things. Currently my 282 hosts Otophone SPU Mono and it has a full bath of 5W-30 with the damping arrow extended all the way into the oil. The arm subjective moves very-very slight damped but I was not able to detect that it affect the quality of sound in any way.  I experimented with changing the coupling between the oil and the arrow but I did not detect any benefits of auditable results. I decided to keep oil just because it is already there…

George wrote:

Most Importantly, I notice that you use the arm with the fingerlift attached. Have you ever tried it without the fingerlift attached?

What do you men the fingerlift, the default Micro’s tonearm lift? Do you men to use the arm without it? I thigh tha if it is not engaged then it is completely out of picture? Was I wrong?

George wrote:

In addition to recommending this arm, I must mention one other thing that I am very grateful to you for. You were very keen on the Micro Seiki Du Pus Extra "sweeper." I bought one and was so impressed at the dirt it picked up that I bought an assortment of the other makes and styles. I ended up, apparently as you did, with the Audio Technica. These things must have been very popular at one time. I ended up sticking with blue tac a penny sized brass footer plate on the end to lighten the "tracking force," works much better for me. I am using the roller dry. Have you tried any anti-static liquids on the roller?

Yes, those devised are every simple bat incredibly resultfull. The Audio Technica cleaner is better made even they have the brash running behind the roll, that it a Mecca of idiocy. Micro did the picking brash run ahead of the roll and the dust lifting by the brash for picking by the roll – it is much more effective. Still, I use both of them and very happy with the benefits they offer. I use then dry only and I religiously do not use any moisturizing…

George wrote:

Last question, how long does it take you to change pipes and make adjustments on the Max? I have an extra J-arm and of course just changing the pipe is easy enough. However, I found that resetting the tracking force (using the weight at the rear, not the dial) and VTA to be cumbersome to my fairly clumsy fingers.

The tracking force is set within the pipe and when you change the entire pipe then all setting should be preserved, the only thighs that should/might be changed are the VTA. When I used to do it I use a very small high-resolution level that I placed atop of the 282’s large turning plate, parallel to the pipe. I knew that this given pipe with it’s given cartridge should have (at it’s best setting) the air bubble to be for instance 5mm form the perfect horizontal position. So, I change the pipe and then moved VTA until I placed the air bubble into a necessary position. Ironically but I might if I wanted to keep this level scotched in there foe all time – I did not detect any sonic problems with it.

George wrote:

By fingerlift I mean that piece of metal sticking out about 1" (1/8" wide) at the extreme left end of the pipe. It is attached by two screws to the pipe. It looks easily removable but I have not tried it. I imagine it is possible that it could have an effect on the sound--everything else seems to.

Perhaps, I never tried to remove it. With those tonearms it imposable to figure out what would affect what….

George wrote:

I looked at the arm again and I am afraid I am going to be very dense about azimuth adjustment. I don't see how to do it. Could you please elaborate when you have time? I could find nothing in the manual.

In the XP-282 SC insert (as on the any other inserts) there are bolts that attach the pipe to the headshell. You might spin the headshell relative to the pipe by unscrewing those bolts. On the SC inset there are 4 microscopic bolts and on the AU and SM arms there are two. Be very careful with them as the most likely were sitting there for 20-30 years and they have very fragile threads and heard. If you do not have an appropriate screwdriver or do not apply enough pressure then it is very ease to damage those bolts. Generally the azimuth adjustment is a bogus thing to do. A proper cartridge should have perpendicular needed and the properly made arm should set the cartridge perfectly parallel without needs to do any azimuth change. I have 5 micro pipe and all of them hold the azimuth with none-damaged cartridge perfectly aligned. You see, I sincerely feel that considering the size of the azimuth bolt and some other factors, it is better do not touch the azimuth at all as if you do then you never fix it firm enough within our “fields conditions”. I personally would  set the azimuth  and then glue the headshell to the pipe… but it is me…

George wrote:

If I wish to experiment about how much weight do you add and where? I couldn't see any additional weight in the picture.

At the arm on the picture there is no weight as it runs the Denon-103D then do not need any extra mass with this arm.

Gibraltar wrote:

I recently picked up a MAX-282 tone arm and when setting it up with my test record I'm getting buzzing in the right channel during the bias test tracks. Changing the anti-skating setting has no audible effect. On other arms I have if I set the VTF to zero (so the arm balances horizontally) and turn on the anti-skating the arm swings outwards. On the MAX-282 when I do this it doesn't move at all.  Romy, have you ever tried this on your MAX-282? I have a feeling that my arm may be broken, but thought I'd check if you've seen similar behavior before I jump to conclusions. I'm also wondering about the arm tubes. My arm came with the J-shaped arm tube which I'm using with a headshell and a normal catridge. Have you ever compared the J-shaped tube with the straight tubes in terms of sound quality? Micro suggested that you should use the straight tube unless you had an integrated headshell catridge, but for all I know this could just be because removable headshells went out of fashion.

Gibraltar,
 
it is possible that your anti-skating setting is broken. You might try at lover VTF and to see if the anti-skating turn the needle. Micro anti-skating a bit freaky – it calibrated up to 4 grams, up to 5 grams with curved tubes but in reality it is 2.5 grams. Micro’s grams is a springs – I do not like spring but it is what it is.

I would discard the test disk truck– I never use it. Take a silent space between the cuts (test disk!) and make a needle at your operational VTF to be in stationary ay a bit more than a half record. In fact it is arguable where the needle needs to be balanced but I will not go to this debate now. I use a half or a bit more than a half record. You will instantly see how good or bad your anti-skating work. Be advised that Micro MAX-282 anti-skating has very low compliance and has high horizontal inertia. If you are accustomed to contemporary super compliant arms that react to Cat’s farts from another room them it might be a bit different.

About the tubes. The J-tube is good as it is heavy tube – I like high effective mass arms. There are two straight tubes. One is for super light MM cartridges and another is normal one. This normal straight tube has a bug – the offset sluts on the headshell are cut a few degrees of the mark to hit proper overhanging. It might be easily corrected by angling the cartridge in the slots. It is a bit too light tube but still useable, particularly if you load it.

BTW, Gibraltar, your profile shows that you are in Japan. Is any Micro Seiki legacy heard? Is the company permanently gone?

Romy the Cat wrote:

I would discard the test disk truck– I never use it. Take a silent space between the cuts (test disk!) and make a needle at your operational VTF to be in stationary ay a bit more than a half record.In fact it is arguable where the needle needs to be balanced but I will not go to this debate now. I use a half or a bit more than a half record. You will instantly see how good or bad your anti-skating work.

Romy the Cat wrote:

About the tubes. The J-tube is good as it is heavy tube – I like high effective mass arms. There are two straight tubes. One is for super light MM cartridges and another is normal one. This normal straight tube has a bug – the offset sluts on the headshell are cut a few degrees of the mark to hit proper overhanging. It might be easily corrected by angling the cartridge in the slots. It is a bit too light tube but still useable, particularly if you load it.

Romy the Cat wrote:

BTW, Gibraltar, your profile shows that you are in Japan. Is any Micro Seiki legacy heard? Is the company permanently gone?

Gibraltar wrote:

Not sure what you're suggesting here. Are you saying that I should be able to hear some channel imbalance from the surface noise if the anti-skate is not working? I did try removing the arm tube then turning the anti-skate dial up to max to see if the armbase would rotate counter clockwise, and there was no movement. Like you said though, low compliance and high horizontal inertia could be masking the anti-skating force, but it doesn't seem like it.

Gibraltar wrote:

I'm wondering if I should try to disassemble the armbase to see what's going on in there. I'm pretty sure I could get it apart, but not sure at all if I could get it back together. I don't suppose you've ever tried this with your arms?

Gibraltar wrote:

I guess I'll stick with the J-tube for now then. The straight tube is appealing to me, but they're very hard to find and very expensive now so unless there's some real sonic benefit I'll forget about it. The only one I've seen lately was in HK, and the guy wanted 1800 USD for it!

Gibraltar wrote:

Here in Japan Micro's legacy is very quiet. There is definitely still a user base, and I'm aware of at least one fan club, but it seems small. I'm sure there are still many big micro tables in use, but I have a feeling that most of the users are old and don't get online much. You know a while ago Stereo Sound published a special volume on vintage TTs, and I was excited to get some info on the history of Micro. Turns out though that all they covered were foreign tables...Thorens, EMT, etc! I feel that's indicative of many people's opinons here...they idolize 'golden age' European equipment but don't recognize the great stuff that was made right here. Regarding the company itslef, I've asked around at local shops and they all say it's dead and gone. As recently as 2004 I know some shops still had a decent stock of spare parts, but there's absolutely nothing left now. Many of the local used hifi shops here will not deal in Micro tables anymore because they cannot get maintenance/parts. There are a few that can do maintenance themselves and do still sell Micros, but good units rarely appear. The only consistent source is Yahoo Auctions, where a big TT will show up once every month or two. I also know of one small machine shop that makes replica amrboards and accessories, but that's it. Too bad because I could really use some spare armtubes!