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The Nanotube is a tonearm that defies belief.
The structural performance of the A.C.T. Series
of tonearms, have set the standard in terms of
stiffness to weight ratio, as well as damping,
since their introduction 17 years ago.
The Nanotube is much more complex. The
tube is derived from the ideal natural form, of
a hyperbolic curve, and so places the material,
in exactly the place where the beam requires
it to be, in order to achieve the stiffest
structure, with the least amount of material.
The tube itself, is composed of a woven helix
of carbon fibre, to provide the stiffest torsional
strength and the most damping, from the
billions of carbon fibre filaments. Further
localised stiffening, has been determined by
compute r modeling. Super high modulas
uni-directional fibres, are deployed in these regions, adding immense stiffness with virtually no additional mass.
The Epoxy resin matrix is then enhanced with nanotubes. After its creation, the tube is improved still further by
the addition of low mass, high compression internal bulkheads.
These enhance tube stiffness and also provide high performance, cross axial damping. The internal wire is
isolated by these structures also, providing the ideal disposition for the low level signals. No additional finishing
is added to the tube for aesthetic considerations as this would add mass that has no sonic benefit. The result
sees a structure that is more than an order of magnitude superior to its predecessors in terms of stiffness and
damping. An amazing achievement given the previous benchmark, which in our opinion, was already more than
several orders of magnitude superior to any metal or ceramic design!
The Nanotube benefits from other research results, that make the whole system less audible as well as
more user friendly. The counter balance looks similar to its predecessor but has been totally redeveloped.
It now sees a two stage compliant mounting to thwart any potential resonance in the metal and carbon
structures from which it is created. The mass of the counter balance has also been optimised so as to
match exactly the requirements of the Wilson Benesch carbon fibre cartridges. A small collection of other
metal structures have been replaced by carbon fibre also, including all the anti skate systems. V.T.A. is also
now fully adjustable to one, one hundredth of a millimetre.
The Wilson Benesch Nanotube Tonearm
The adjacent graph clearly shows the difference
in stiffness, between the basic carbons and
metals. Significantly, simply by adding nanotubes,
improvements in stiffness, in the order of 30%
can be achieved. Nano tubes are structures that
are measured at the molecular level.
Typically, carbon is twenty five times smaller in
diameter than a human hair. In each bundle that
you see in a carbon fibre sheet, there are 25,000
fibres. In the A.C.T. tonearm there are literally
billions of energy consuming boundaries! In the
Nanotube Tonearm, damping and stiffness is
being dramatically enhanced, it is thought, by
cross-linking at the molecular level.
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