Empire 990

Stereo wired tonearm, as fitted to the Empire 598 and 598 mk2 Troubador turntable systems.

Description

The Empire 990 pick-up arm is fully stereo balanced, to the front as well as the rear of pivots.

Stylus force of 0-4g can be dialled in with a calibrated clock mainspring, more accurate then any commercially available stylus pressure gauge.

The Dyna-lift automatically lifts the arm off the record at the end of the music.

Vernier calibrated anti-skating adjustments can be set exactly to match any operating stylus force for conical or elliptical styli, eliminating uneven record wear.

Cartridges can be instantly demounted and interchanged.

The inline stylus to pivot axis means no warp-wow or cosine error distortion.

The 990 has the lowest fundamental resonance of any arm, an inaudible 6 Hz.

Finally the dead centre cueing control floats the arm up or down from the record surface, bathed in light to pick out the exact selection you want.

Specifications

Stylus force: 0 to 4g

Arm length: 12"

Effective length: 9"

Overhang: 5/8"

Arm offset angle: 23.8 degrees

Arm resonance: 6Hz

Vertical height adjustment: 1 5/8"

Downloads

instruction/owners manual (en)

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Empire 990 owners manual, service manuals and schematics are for reference only and the Vinyl Engine bears no responsibility for errors or other inaccuracies. The PDF files are copyright the Vinyl Engine and provided under strict licence. Reproduction for financial gain is strictly prohibited. This website is not affiliated with or sponsored by Empire.

Comments

990 Tonearm Link...

Submitted on October 20th, 2008 by Rhubarb

This link directs you to the empire 598 manual...which includes some empire 990 tonearm information.

Repairing EMPIRE 598 & 990 (Tone Arm)

Submitted on January 31st, 2010 by DIMAGGIO55

Hi ,
What I'm trying to do is find out all the parts I will need to get 598 up to specs.
I've owned this turntable since 1970's.

The Arm balances great (to 0.. as per your directions)only The CUEING doesn't seem to work. I see the post inside the arm housing going up and down but it doesn't lift on the platform inside the arm housing.

Also, I use an Empire 4000D/III gold cartridge with new stylus, stylus and is set to the front of the mounting plate as directed. Now when a play a 100 % new vinyl, I hear clicking and hissing between tracks and sometimes on the tracks. The material is very quite jazz (Julie London w/Bud Snank Quartet) with amplitude and transients not present in the music. These noises happened at forces 1-2 grams, I haven't increased force beyond that point as not to damage vinyl.
I have 2 stylus, they both produce the same result (238-DQ & 238-DEQ bought 1yr ago from NOS of Transcriber).

The rest of my system is all 1970's McIntosh (pream, amps etc).The sound/content itself sounds great except for the noise at times. Again, this is from sealed vinyl.
The tone arm sits 9.525 mm (3/8th of an inch above records and the anti-skate screw is always set as well (1 line from rear to 2 lines from rear) depending on tracking force used.

Any thoughts as to what I can try.
Again I appreciate any help in tuning this system.
Regards,
Arnold