temaadaudio

About the Designer and Owner

Derek is a trained indentured toolmaker who served his time (5 year apprenticeship) at Vauxhall Motors in Luton, England. He made his 1st turntable & arm when he was 18 years old. At 24 years old he immigrated to New Zealand where he 1st worked for Ford Motors NZ as a toolmaker, going on to become a Process Engineer, then a Design & Development Engineer & lastly as a Quality Assurance Engineer. Then he moved on to Mazda Motors NZ as their Senior Design & Development Engineer. After the motor industry closed down in New Zealand he spread his talents to be a Design & Development Engineer for Namco NZ (no not the gaming people) but an aluminum outdoor furniture manufacturing company. After this he had a complete switch and became the Development Engineer & QA Manager for Dricon Concrete NZ a member of Fletcher NZ, the countries biggest construction company. Then at 54 years old after a marriage break up he decided to pursue his dream & started TemaadAudio, however he quickly found development costs were to high in New Zealand. So he moved to China, where manufacturing costs are so much lower, there he started teaching as an English teacher & in his spare time (teachers in China only work around 20 – 24 hours / week) he developed the components for the range or Temaad turntables & arms. After 8 years in China he returned to New Zealand & had a 2 year sabbatical, due to ill health. Then 4 years ago he restarted manufacturing the tonearms himself in a small workshop in Wanganui, New Zealand where he now lives. He has not attempted to restart the turntable manufacturing as the cost of shipping a turntable from New Zealand around the world is crippling.

Questions : Below you will find some answers to some of the questions we have be asked by customers about our arm. If you cannot find an answer to your query please feel free to email u, we are only glad to help

Why do you only produce 12 inch arms.

We specialize in 12” arms, at the design stage our brief was to make the best sounding arm for a price point. It was obvious that this necessitated making a 12 inch arm, our standard arm. We look in amazement how other companies charge between $400 - $1500 for buying one of their 12 inch arms over the 9 inch cost. When in fact the manufacturing price difference is only about 10% of what they charge!! However we can produce 10.5 & 9.5 and even 14 & 16 inch by special order, but they will cost more than a our 12 inch standard version.

How long has TemaadAudio been in existence.

We started 11 years ago, after about 2 years of development in China where I also worked as a English teacher. The arms were developed with the assistance Staff & Students at Zhanjiang Modern School of Science & Technology University, Guangzhou, China

How reliable are these arms.

Well, we offer a 10 year guarantee on all our arms & in our 10 years of manufacturing we have only had 1 arm returned to us. And that was a kit arm and the purchaser found he did not have the skills to complete the task. So we completed it for him for a small charge to cover our time & sent it back for him to enjoy.

Why are your arms much cheaper that other 12” arms

We specialize in 12” arms, so all our components arm manufactured as such, Other manufactures normally specialize in 9” arm & you pay a premium for a 12”. Also we sell direct to the public & 80% of our arms are manufactured in house which significantly keeps the cost down, which we pass on to you the customer.

How do I know your arm will match my cartridge.

Our carbon fiber arms have an effective mass of 14 grams & the titanium arm is 18 grams. These Effective masses will suit most cartridges on the market today. However if you have a high compliance cartridge like a Denon 103 or Koetsu Red then we can modify our arm effective (increase) mass to suit these types of cartridge. Can we manufacture a lower effective mass arm, the answer is yes & no, we can get down to an effective mass of 9 grams visa special order by drilling holes in the arm, much like is done to the AudioMods arm.

Why do your arms not have cartridge slots.

We believe virtually all other manufactures make the user slightly compromise the arm/cartridge performance by telling the user to set up to a predetermined & often arbitrary length. The cartridge mounting point to stylus tip, can vary as much as 10 mm between different models. So although you are given a predetermined point & asked to set your cartridge to it, it is not the position than necessarily will give the best performance, it is a compromise position. If you are unlucky & have to move your cartridge toward the rear of your arm slots, then you effectively make the arm shorter!! Which is not what we want, for optimal performance and the lowest distortion fugues we should make the arm/cartridge length as long as possible. So with our arms we force the user to set the cartridge/arm length to the maximum, thus achieving optimum performance & the lowest distortion for that arm/cartridge combination. All you do to achieve this & get the correct overhang is move the base of the arm backwards. With the Merlin arm mounting cam system the base does not need moving, the user rotates the top collar in a cam collar and this then moves the arm backwards, off cause this system costs more to manufacture. However it is also available to be purchased as an add on option for other arms. Secondarily, it allows for easier cartridge angular alignment, with the arm slot system used for most standard arm, you need to try to rotate your cartridge around the slots to align the cartridge, this can stop the user from obtaining the alignment they choose. (One arm manufacturer only allow you to set up for the Stevenson alignment, (in our opinion the worst alignment system one should use). With our system the user can easily position the cartridge between 5 deg's & 30 deg's, therefore being able to accommodate any alignment procedure that you choose to use. This is not possible with most other arms. Thirdly, We believe that using arm slots in the head shell only weekends the head-shell area, and this is exactly the place where the arm should be is most rigid. Because if the head-shell area flexes at all you will loose signal from your precious recording. That is exactly why it was proven many years ago that fixed head-shell arm sound better than removable head-shell arm.

What options are available with Temaad arms.

Basically, every arm can be fitted with any option in the range. By special order you can you can fit a titanium arm tube to a Wizard arm. Or have the cam base provided with a Warlock arm. You can even get the carbon fiber arm tube fitted to a Merlin arm. All we have done with our arm suggestions is provide what we think is the best fit at a price point. But it is easy to mix & match the options to make up your unique tone arm, just ask & we will give advise on suitability & advise a price at no charge.

How do you adjust VTA & stylus vertical alignment.

As our arms use a post & collar system so to adjust the VTA all you do is loosen off the arm post collar grub screw & raise or lower the arm post to a suitable height. If you are very careful and I mean very careful you can even do this on the fly. Of cause the stylus's vertical alignment is done by slightly shifting the counter weight to the left or right.

Why do your arms sound so good ?

Apart from the fact that 12 inch arms virtually always sound better than there 9 inch equivalent, why because a 12 inch arm produces lower distortion. Also our arms are designed more correctly than most others (we know of only one other manufacturer who uses this design feature and their arms cost approximately 2 times the price of a Temmad arm) this by placing outrigger weights at an angle horizontal to the cantilever. This is a most important feature, it insures that the tonearm is always pivoting in a true vertical plane, At the same time, these weights provide positive lateral stability and easy adjustment of absolute azimuth. This allows the arm balance better & play warped LP's with less stress on the cartridge, allowing it to do it's proper job that is receiving faithfully the information stored on the LP.

Are your arms up-gradable

Yes every arm is up gradable right up top our top of the line Merlin VDH. There are several upgraded shown in the Accessories page. But if you want some else then just drop us an email.