A Copernican View of the Turntable System

I also got me TS-150 directly from Herzan dealing with Tim -- a very easy process. 

I have posted the interference readouts from my installation as part of my system description (https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/5707#&gid=1&pid=31)

You can see from the traces that in my room I get a lot more background seismic activity than Halcro does. This is a wall shelf installation so that may explain why the main activity is in the vertical dimension. The time base for the scan is 165mS so the frequency of the activity is 10-12 Hz or so -- it strikes me that as this is close to the resonant frequency of arm/cartridge combinations it may be that eliminating this may be one of the reasons the effect of these active platforms is so profound.You can also see that in my setup I get some motor noise transmitted into the stand which the TS-150 does a good job of removing. My TT (EAR DiscMaster) is designed to prevent this noise making it into the platter (via a decoupled tension bearing and the give in the toothed belt) but it should help to also not have noise build up in the stand itself

Anyway just wanted to add my voice to back up what @halcro says about the benefits of addressing the record player as a system and working from the ground up

@halcro yes, we do share similar tastes in some regards

the Grand Prix Audio Brooklands shelf is not in any way springy or flexible -- once correctly installed and locked down it is completely rigid. The only compliance on the design is in the typical GPA sorbothane discs that sit under the shelf and with the Herzan I have defeated these by simply overloading them.

Furthermore in my current installation the shelf is not actually attached to the wall but is instead mounted on three dedicated studs that are not connected to the drywall, each stud is in turn damped by an ASC stud damper.

Herzan were concerned that this would be an installation that fought against the active isolation but I have had no issues. The main problem the active platform addresses is seismic disturbance from construction (plus traffic and quake of course) there are six active multi story construction sites within a two block radius of my house and the whole area is reclaimed wetland so not the most secure of foundations. All of my stands and my speakers are seismically isolated via roller ball type footers or Townshend podia

The effect of active isolation is to make the table sound more stable and secure. Peaks no longer overload, bass seems diminished but is in fact cleaner, lower and more detailed. Frankly all of the euphonic (and nice to listen too) distortions of LP playback are significantly reduced and my LPs sound much more like my digital system but with all the air, emotion and interior dynamics that analog always excelled at. The improvement is actually most obvious with mono recordings which become even more dynamic and clear. I would certainly put the impact of adding active isolation above either an arm or cartridge upgrade, it would be interesting to see if a sub $10k analog rig on a Herzan outperformed a $20k one without it, I suspect it would

The Palladian is still performing exceptionally, I used to have issues with stylus muck build up but since getting an ultrasonic cleaner this is a problem I no longer have. I’m still waiting on a new arm board from EAR so I can drop the arm another .5mm which I think will be ideal but other than that no concerns. Where do you have yours riding relative to horizontal? At present I’m a hair tail up which is as low as my arm can go with the sub board I currently have to use