Jelco - SA-250 Tonearm
Galibier Modified Jelco
Good bye, Jelco
On April 2, 2020, Jelco announced discontinuation of their tonearm operation.
We have a small, remaining stock of arms.
Read below for details, and contact us for availability.
Some "Hot rod" SA-250s are still available - $1,495!
We produced a run of SA-250 tonearms (9″, statically balanced, “S” shape with removable headshell) with our partners at Artisan audio.
We have a small remaining stock of these Artisan-branded SA-250s, available.
his price includes our custom modification ("Hot Rod Jelco") to the arm stub and counterweight.
Check with us for current stock status.
Serac with Jelco Arm
Hot Rod Jelco
Hot Rod Jelco
In 1970's, it was common to specify a lossy connection between the bearing tower and the arm stub/countereweight assembly.
Jelco was not alone in this respect. Arms like the TriPlanar continue to implement this architecture to this day.
Based on our experiences with Schröder and Kuzma arms, we experimented with solidifying this connection and documented it over here.
This modification takes the humble SA-250 to the next level. While it's not a world-beater, it's very honest arm and the improvement is notable.
The key improvement lies in its extended bandwidth, with a more authoritative and yet nuanced presentation than the original.
It would be false humility if we did not state the following: owners of arms with this modification, can bypass all intermediate "upgrades" and wait for that Schröder or Kuzma. It is that good.
We've also made a minor modification to the mounting collar so that it is compatible with the "short" Kuzma mount. All of our Galibier turntables drilled for Kuzmas can initially be fit with Jelcos. This is also true of all Kuzma turntables, with the exception of the Stabi S.
When the time comes to move to a 4Point, the installation is plug and play.
We run one of these Jelcos in our mono rig and it has nothing to apologize for.
