Nottingham Analogue Ace Space Tonearm

Nottingham Analogue Ace Space Tonearm

The perfect partner to a Nottingham Analogue deck

All Nottingham arms are a unipivot design. Unipivots are usually designed with the pivot sitting in a silicone bath. The problem with this design is that the silicone bath takes quite a while to settle down and so the arm will change in sound as it plays the record. Many unipivots also use offset stabilizer weights or eccentric counter weights to insure proper azimuth.

The Nottingham design uses side stabilizer bars and tiny ball bearing chases to maintain azimuth. Nottingham has also developed a proprietary damping material the viscosity of which is such that it does not flow and does not require “settling time”. This material is applied to the center pivot and the stabilizer bars. Nottingham uses carbon fibre tubes with the fibres oriented the length of the tone arm not wrapped around it (like a bandage). This greatly increases the strength, resonance control and rigidity of the arm. Nottingham also uses an unusual headshell design. The headshell has an orientation that is in direct line with the tone arm and not offset in any way. The headshell also has no finger lift. These two features insure that the arm is properly balanced from side to side and that no uncontrolled resonances are running around the headshell.

This arm uses the same long grain carbon fibre tube but also uses a second tube as a liner. This helps dramatically with both rigidity and resonance control. The ACE Space also uses a threaded allen screw to make the selection and adjustment of VTA a simple step.