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Well Tempered's patented chatter-free bearing system is incorporated in all models of Well Tempered Arms. Consequently, a Well Tempered Arm can improve the resolution and neutrality of any turntable. Customers who own a Record Player or Classic can also realize improved performance by upgrading to a higher level tonearm in the Well Tempered line.

Well Tempered Reference Arm

The Well Tempered Reference Arm adds a number of major advances to the original Well Tempered Arm concept. These are not changes in the design principle of the arm, which no one has ever been able to improve upon. Rather they are carefully thought out ways of getting even more performance from Bill Firebaugh's original design. The Reference Arm provides substantial improvements in dynamics, transient response, bass weight, midrange richness, and neutrality throughout the audible frequency range.

Carbon Fiber Arm Tube. The Reference arm tube is a larger diameter carbon fiber epoxy composite tube. The fibers in the plies have a specific angular orientation to the tube for optimum axial and radial stiffness.

Internally Damped Adjustable Damping Cup. The Reference Damping Cup consists of a heavy-walled, low resonance, two-piece cup with constrained layer damping material bonded between the two pieces. The entire cup assembly is threaded on the outside permitting the user to turn a knurled rim at the top of the cup to fine tune cartridge damping independently of all other adjustments.

One Piece Arm Paddle Assembly. The Reference Arm Paddle Assembly has been combined into one massive machined part which connects to the arm in two locations for greatly improved rigidity in this important part of the unique Well Tempered Arm design.

Base Mounted Adjustable Arm Rest. A black Delrin, two-piece adjustable arm rest is mounted on the turntable base.

VTA Adjustment. The VTA can be adjusted with complete control by means of a setscrew in the top of the main arm post.

Internal Wiring. The Reference Arm is wired with what our listening panel has chosen as the most neutral of all available wire options.

Three Piece Counterweight. The Reference counterweight consists of a main weight and two secondary weights to match all cartridges.

Well Tempered Classic V Arm

The Classic V Arm has been improved many times since its original introduction. The Classic V Arm has vertical tracking angle, tracking force, azimuth, damping, and antiskate adjustments. Improvements include a heavy-walled machined damping cup, high quality gold-plated RCAs on the terminal block, a carbon fiber arm tube, a one-piece paddle assembly, a headshell with greater mass and contact area, a two-piece adjustable arm rest, and more easily adjustable vertical tracking angle. The Well Tempered Classic V Arm can be a significant upgrade for many of the best turntables available today. It can also be used as an upgrade for the Well Tempered Record Player.

Well Tempered Record Player Arm

This arm provides the highest performance per dollar invested of any high performance tonearm available today. The Record Player Arm has vertical tracking angle, tracking force, azimuth, and damping adjustments, built-in antiskating, and a heavy-walled machined damping cup.

The Black Damped Platter

This handsome black acrylic platter is standard on the Well Tempered Classic V and Reference Turntables. It may be purchased as an upgrade for the Well Tempered Record Player and earlier production Classics. The Black Damped Platter is hollowed out from the bottom on a lathe to accept a .355" thick piece of Isodamp -- a high tech damping material developed by the Navy to control noise and resonances in ships. After the damping material has been bonded to the platter, the entire assembly is then put back on the lathe for final turning.

The platter's damping material provides extensional damping which greatly attenuates the platter's fundamental resonant nodes and resultant harmonics. There is less energy stored in the platter which results in cleaner sound and more accurate harmonic decay characteristics than can be achieved with a standard acrylic platter. Because the damping material is applied internally, the original interface between the record and the acrylic platter is maintained while at the same time reducing resonances. Damping the platter is a far more effective approach to reducing reflections and resulting resonances from the platter than any record mat system we have tried.

The Well Tempered Motor

The Well Tempered motor now includes power line filtering, located in a module on the three conductor power cord, and new internal balancing circuitry for substanitally smoother motor operation. The balancing circuitry allows each individual motor to be fine tuned for optimal current. Many motors are allowed to operate in saturation (meaning more current than necessary to generate the desired torque) which results in cogging effects and vibration. The Well Tempered motor can be adjusted to attenuate the current to the motor in order to achieve the desired sinusoidal flux distribution and minimal vibration.

The Fountainhead Turntable Base

The Well Tempered Fountainhead Base is standard on the Reference Table, and it is a significant upgrade for Classic Arm and Table combinations.

Although the Classic Turntable Base has very little resonance, there is some resonant activity in the audio range which passes through the turntable bearing to the spindle and into the platter. Because these resonances are at a different frequency than the damping activity of the Damped Platter itself, the difficult task of isolating the phono stylus from resonances can not be completed until resonances in the turntable base are thoroughly addressed. The Well Tempered Fountainhead Base accomplishes that end because it has a very low amplitude resonant frequency in the subsonic region which results from a artful combination of materials. The sixty-pound base comes in two parts -- a top and a bottom. Each part is made like a sandwich. The two sandwiches are separated by isolation feet. Each sandwich consists of 2 layers of Fountainhead separated by Isodamp constrained layer damping material. The isolation feet separating the top sandwich from the bottom have been specially selected for their degree of softness (durometer) and resulting vibration absorption.