A Copernican View of the Turntable System

T_bone,
Is your concrete floor 'suspended' or cast on the ground?
A suspended slab can often pose problems due to dynamic movement and deflections.
It's true that seismic movement is hard to protect against but most other external influences (even in big cities) can be minimized especially by wall-mounting.
The de-coupling effect of metal brackets combined with wood-based shelving cantilevered off masonry walls works in all but the most complex of situations.
SOUND

Suspended. I don't worry about whether my floor will flex though. I know it will. Earthquakes affect the sound because the building shakes (for those not used to them, earthquakes can be 'noisy'). Having had a setup on the ground floor (concrete slab) before, I know it will move too. That's life in the big city...

Unfortunately for you, seismic design entails making very flexible structures......especially at the joints.....those between column and beam, load-bearing wall and floor.
They are designed to move significantly......virtually like a hinge.
Structure-borne feedback in these conditions is almost a given.
I now understand your problems :^(
Air-borne feedback is very rarely a problem despite what you believe.

I am happy to have the seismic protection for when earthquakes come along. But the resonant frequency of those is quite low :^)

However, I notice the difference between having an isolation platform and not having one. And I notice the difference in loading one differently. And I also notice acoustic feedback from time to time. Wish it weren't so, but I do... But that's just me and if noone else has a problem with sound waves in their listening space, I guess I'm just unlucky... :^(

The result of the structural design for seismic loading creates a building (particularly a high-rise steel or concrete structure) which is continually 'moving' even when there are no quakes.
We are not talking resonant frequency here......we are talking constantly moving structures which are setting up wave patterns of frequencies from the subsonic possibly even into the low twenties.
It's not a good look.....but there are solutions which however would require specialist knowledge.
If I were you....I'd try my Micro SX 8000 or any other heavy unsuspended deck and see if there is an improvement?
I'm betting there is:^)

FWIW... my apartment building is wide and flat and is only 3 floors high. It is certainly not designed with the same features as my office building, which is 15 times taller, and has seismic dampening foundations.

Not sure what to say... My SX-8000 sounds better with an air-bearing isolation stand beneath it than without it, as does my SP-10Mk3 in a SAEC-like metal plinth. Both weigh a short ton. I am currently listening mostly to a very heavy direct drive turntable with stillpoints for feet. The sound is excellent. But I have yet to put an air table beneath it and I am wondering...

T_bone,

Meow,

"Some pod implementations have different isolation systems under the pod and the table, which makes for a different arm-bearing-to-table-bearing interaction, and this is something I would suggest against. In the end, it all comes down to implementation (Dgob's Chinese cats and your arm pods)."

Anyone using an arm tower and pneumatic/magnetic footers beneath their TT is decoupling these at the plinth. I assure you the logic around this being erroneous does not hold, IME. At least you seem to keep an open mind and that is all that anyone could ask for, whether or not we ever find agreement.

I thought it might be useful to look at some commercially sold arm-pods and the design thought between them?
3 current manufacturers come to mind:-
DaVinci
Redpoint
TTWeights
DAVINCI
DaVinci apparently make their armpods from wood. Different materials inside for damping purposes?
REDPOINT
I think I contacted them before making my armpods as the similarity is too obvious.
Their pods are made of any non-ferrous metal you want and chambers within the pods are filled with silicone oil for damping purposes.
I believe prices started at approx $2000 depending on height and other requirements....but could escalate from there?
TTWEIGHTS
Closest to a universal tonearm with adjustable heights etc. uses combinations of materials for damping purposes.

My own thoughts are that the prices of these commercially available products are too high.....obviously because of the mark-up factor involved.
The use of dissimilar materials for damping purposes cannot be bad...even if of debatable usefulness....but must contribute to the costs of production.
I believe that weight is the single most important attribute of a good armpod and I would do without some glamorous extras if loss of weight were the penalty?
What do others think?

I can add the Reed arm pod among the commercially available
kind (www.reed.lt ; accessories). But what about a 'sturdy'
one for cheap? I 'assist' ( by looking) my machinist while
he was busy to cut from a billet of bronze a collar for my
Pioneer P-70 tonearm. Not exactly Heureka but some kind of
Aha Erlebnis : this stuff must be very suitable for an arm
pod . Bronze is an alloy so depending on the 'amalgam' heavier or lighter. To add (more) weight one can choose larger diameter,etc. Lew already mentioned where one can get bronze (e.a.) in all kinds of dimensions. For the tonearms with surface fastening one need just 3 holes with thread on each side . By polishing the thing it will look
like made from gold. I assume nobody else got this idea?

Regards,

Err Nicola,
Did you mean like this?
BRONZE

Here is the link for REED
Do you know the pricing Nicola?
Also.....100mm diamX100mm high is pretty small?

Dear Halcro, I am sorry but 'casting' seems to be some
other kind of animal then cuting from a billet of bronze. I think that you should pay more atention to, uh, 'structural properties' then aesthetics. However I would like to know
what the postage cost from Australia to Holland are.

Regards,

Dear Halcro, I was the first customer by the Reed company
and ordered both: the tonearm and the arm pod . But specific for my Kuzma Stabi Reference. My arm pod was the first they have produced and of course meant for my
Kuzma. So, I am sure, they will produce whatever a customer want. If I remember well I got both for 1500 Euro. But meanwhile they have importeurs and dealers evrywhere so this means at least twice the price. One can ask Vidmantas about all the details. BTW your comment: 'pretty small' is not appreciated. So to get my
revenge I don't consider you arm pod as beautiful any more.
Regards,

Just a clarification in my last post - I dont see it posted yet.

I say something like nothing has moved. In respect of the previous posts I am taking the liberty of re-wording it.

After 2.5 months - In looking at where the stylus is on the alignment gauge:

Edited

"If I was lining it all up for the first time today I would try to align the sylus exactly as I see it now"

I have to admit that I am impressed with what I have seen in all these photos. Obviously this is a serious exercise. The Da Vinci!!! OMG! Wretched excess, thy name is Leonardo.

Since TT Weights stuff is almost always available at a discount, and since they are incredible machinists, I would go that route absent the availability of a fine machinist to custom-make one for me.

T-Bone – looking forward to hearing of your results with the armpod experiment and how your ideas can help to improve my setup.

Guys - Its nice to bring this channel back to its regular programming. :^)

Hi Dgob - In follow up to my material inquiries earlier.
It is my intent to build two more pods but I am not sure yet of the material hence my question earlier. My direct experience in talking to the people that work at Metal Supermarkets. Most of their metals are in solid billet form and sent to them after they have been melted down and pulled through the device that forms their shape. The attached link is a picture of the actual solid billet that my brass piece was cut from. I apologize for the quality -it was moving when the pic was taken.

Solid Brass Billet

My piece came from 4.2 inches that was cut from the right side of this long bar. I ordered 4 inches – they were generous to me, but this almost spelled disaster with my calculations on the adjustability of my TT footers and tonearm adjustments that were possible.

I rate my DIY skill level with metals as very low. I can thread holes for spikes or screws in metals but that’s it for me. Everything else would go to a machine shop $$.

Henry regarding your links to those armpod manufacturers.

I had a very interesting phone discussion with Larry from TT Weights the other day. I hadn’t been to his shop in quite some time. Now remembering his bias as a manufacturer, there are apparently quite a few “for this hobby” of his armpods out there in use today.

If any of Larry’s Armpod users see this thread I would really like to have your impressions on them regardless of whether you have bought just the POD or the TT /Pod package. I had called Larry to schedule a visit with him to see for myself how big the gap still is between my making my next POD or buying one. He is unfortunately sold out and will not have some ready to go again till mid-to late Sept. So will schedule a visit then to check them out and let u guys know. He is looking forward to reviews coming out soon.

FWIW – this is probably one of the longer stretches I have gone without changing up arms or cartridges. 2 ½ months with some vacation time too now for the ET 2.5 and the Empire. I checked it well last night. If I was lining it all up for the first time today I would try to align the sylus exactly as I see it now in my setup still.

Cheers

Henry's stellar example shows that, with the help of a good machinist and some clever ideas, one can fabricate something equally beautiful (in my opinion, more so--the Davinci strikes me as ostentatious) to the ones he linked to. And given those eye-popping prices, one has a strong incentive to DIY.

Nandric: you got a Reed tonearm AND a custom pod for 1500 Euro?! It's good to be first.

Dear Halcro, I looked more cereful to my arm pod and am
very impressed with the looks of the granite parts. As
architect you should know if this material is suitabale for
an arm pod. It looks unvelievable beatuful.

Banquo 363, I am not sure but it may be the case that the
tonearm (12'') was 1500 Euro and the arm pod 500 Euro. Anyway not more than 2000 Euro for both.

Regards,

Halcro, your da vinci link reminded me of this thread.

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=97522.0

Would be nice to have this guys freind as a friend.

Brad

The Reed tonearm was an incredible bargain, even on this side of the pond, when it was first introduced. Then they evidently realized that based on performance it was under-priced. That, and also foreign distributors and their need for a separate profit margin entered the picture.

Just looking at the Da Vinci turntable cum armpods, I can understand why J Valin and M Fremer are big fans. Neither of them ever met a gilded lily he did not love. The more pompous, the better it must sound.

What are your thought's on a pod utilizing a cantilevered pivoting arm board ?

Contimplating this myself the arm board would be robust using select material which easily configured to facilitate tone arms with multi point mounting base or single hole mount with free space under the board for a heavy fasening nut found with some tone arms.

Further thoughts using a heavy pod, hitting the target for pivot to spindle set up must be frustrating nudging that heavy pod fractions of a mm.

Just my thoughts of the virtues of a pivoting arm board.

Thanks for that link Brad,
I saw it last week but could not remember where?
You're right......very fine machining work although I'd be hesitant about doing a platter? This requires dynamic balancing to very fine tolerances.... you don't want a heavy 'rocking' platter eccentrically loading the spindle and motor?!.....not to mention rocking the vinyl :-(

Yes Lew......some of the armpods are exotic indeed!
I suppose when they're attached to turntables that are priced in the mega-dollar region, the manufacturers can afford to splurge?
What we are looking for here......are alternatives to the 'expensive' armpod?
Are there any?

In_shore,
There were some previous discussions here regarding cantilevered pivoted armboards attached to the armpods as per Corby's excellent example illustrated some pages back.
To me, there are three obstacles to this in relation to this thread:-
1) It requires even more expert machining and metalworking skills which puts it beyond the average DIY audiophile here.
2) It makes it more expensive
3) A cantilevered swiveling and/or height-adjustable mounting board attached to the armpod, has many risks regarding stability, movement and rigidity.
The prime requisite in my thesis on the armpod is that of utter solidity and stability.

Strangely enough.....moving the heavy armpods on spikes is not that difficult.
Without the spikes however......the pods can 'glide' across the shelf with alarming alacrity. Co-efficient of friction of the two smooth surfaces must be low?

Dear Nandric,
I like your humour :-)
Unfortunately, sending one of my pods to Europe (including some specialised packing to protect the valuable object).....would cost heaps.....not to mention the Project Manager's time and effort to organise the building and sending of such a thing ;-)

But I might have something better for you?
Lying awake in bed last night......insomnia being a common symptom of painkilling tablets after surgery.....I had a Eureka moment like yours!
A method of producing heavy armpods for the cost of $20-$40?
And no machining skills required and the end result could be as beautiful as you could wish?
Is anyone interested?

Stay tuned and I will reveal my epiphany tomorrow ;-)

Halcro
I was not aware of Corby's work, thank's for bringing this to my attention.
As nice as Corby's design looks and is I find it overly complicated for my requirements and perhaps as you mention plagued with stability problems.

My design is as simplistic as your pods are though mass is the only thing they share in common.

Halcro, hope you are not thinking of pouring concrete into a mold ?
Will be very interesting to see your method that will cost $20-$40.00

In_shore,
Any photos of your pod?

Dear Halcro, Very sorry to hear about your insomia but hope
that those painkillers are effective. Now Lew mentioned somewhere that he gets his best ideas just before going to
sleep. If we can put your both in bed together some huge
Heureka may come out as a result. I of course mean pure intellectual cooperation.
The possibility to get an heavy armpod for $40 looks even more promissing than the start of the MM thread. Is there
any chance that such an arm pod can be made from granite?
The kind from Lithuania is , as I already mentioned, unbelievable beautiful.

Regards,

Dear Lew, I am not familiar with USA price(s) for the Reed but in Germany (www.audio-markt.de) the Reed 2A is 2440 Euro ( basic version) while, for example, Raven 10.5 cost 4000 Euro. Not a bargain but still a 'decente price'.
For those with, uh, the 'French connection' even cheaper.
As far as I know there is no importeur in France (yet).

Regards,

in-shore, halcro is correct in the 3 points he makes. my mandate when i designed the pod was to have as much adjust-ability on-the-fly as possible. i can adjust azimuth and sra on-the-fly. i also wanted to standardise on armboards, as i have a micro seiki table as well with a number of armboards and arms.
i have done all of that with my pod.
as mentioned in an earlier post, the only concern that i have is my extended cantilevered armboard for the davincci. i will be making a new board, shorter and thicker at the post end for more contact area and less overall flex.
i have another pod, similar to the the one pictured, almost completed. it will not have the adjustable sra, but thr rest is the same. it's for my second table. i'm looking forward to installing my moerch up4 on it.
i'll post pics when it's done.
don

Halcro,

Pictures, I can do one better and send you a sample of my work to try in your own system if you like. I am familiar with your tables and some of your tone arms.

Briefly, my pod design is from the top down where most of my time was involved, mass loading is the second stage of the pod.
Henry I understand and appreciate the effects of solidity and stability has, however in my view regarding tone arms its not always a good thing to direct couple that arm to metal plates and hunks of metal.

Don I extend the same offer if you are interested.

Sorry for being vague I can explin in more detail with a p.m.I have to cut this short, road trip.

Regards Mark

One nice thing about the cantilevered armboard is that one can fine tune the spindle to pivot distance without having to shove around the huge main weight of the whole pod. I think this is a tremendous advantage in obtaining mm accuracy. And I don't know why there would be any danger of tipping or even tippiness; the weight of the main body of the pod would easily be many multiples of that of the cantilevered armboard cum tonearm. Another advantage is that one need not accommodate the vertical shaft of the tonearm in the main body of the pod itself (as Henry has cleverly and probably expensively done); it can hang there in space next to the pod, so you can easily fiddle with tonearm ICs, etc. And finally, such a set-up would be very cheap to make and require the minimum of machine skills, IMO. All you need is a brass cylinder, perhaps threaded at the bottom for "feet", a threaded hole in the top dead center of the cylinder to affix the cantilevered armboard(s), and probably an alu or brass or bronze or wood or whatever armboard with a hole at one end for bolting to the cylinder plus a hole at the other end sized to fit the tonearm in question. I really am enthused now; I would make that brass cylinder as large and heavy as possible. Note also, thou plinth-less ones, the size and mass of the bass on that Da Vinci and how the base of the tt is an exact match to the bases of their armpods, so as to provide similar levels of isolation/coupling to the shelf. This is the way it should be done, even if the Da Vinci is "showy".

Concrete armpod indeed!
Why not Audpulse?

Here’s the design:-
A sand and cement mix (3:1 or 4:1 is fine) is available in any hardware store in small plastic bags.
Now for the mould…..select any hollow metal tube section from 100mm diam. (4”) to 150mm diam. (6”) cut to the height required at the seller’s yard.
This metal tube will become the ‘finished’ external surface of the Pod (permanent formwork) so select the material and finish you wish to achieve.
Stainless steel may be linished or polished, copper or brass can have a clear sealer applied, aluminium can be anodised natural or black or can also be powder-coated any colour or painted in an automotive workshop with 2 pack polyurethane to any colour.
A PVC tube from plumbing suppliers is really cheap, but as the concrete cures, it emits quite a lot of heat and the danger becomes one of ‘buckling’ the softening plastic mould?
That’s why ‘wall thickness’ of the hollow tube should be reasonable. Not less than 1mm I should think?

Place the tube on a flat surface lined with heavy weight plastic building sheet (we don’t want the bottom face concrete to stick) and add water to a quantity of the sand and cement mix.
We do not want the mixture to be wet and runny as the higher the water content, the greater the shrinkage and we don’t want the concrete separating from the metal mould?
A nice, dry mix will be perfect to pour into the mould.
Screed off the top of the mix level with the top of the mould, with a metal or wood ruler edge and then place a weight on top of the mould till initial cure has occurred…..we don’t want the concrete to slip out from the bottom edge of the mould?

After 24 hours, initial cure has occurred and the mould can be lifted off the plastic sheet and placed anywhere for the final cure to take place…….30 days is ideal but 21 days may be OK if you are in a hurry.
Now for those who have a tonearm that is all surface fixed, place the tonearm base on the top surface of the finished pod close to one edge (this is for 9” arms which possibly won’t get close enough to the turntable edge if the arm were located in the centre of the 6” diam. Pod) and mark the location of the holding screws. Drill these positions to accept standard plastic plugs and hammer these into the concrete.
Do the same in the base of the pod for the 3 screw-in spikes which you can source from various suppliers.

Voila…..your armpod is ready!

Now here’s the good bit…….for those with vintage tonearms or modern arms which have VTA towers or DIN connectors underneath the arm…..you need to position block-outs in the permanent mould BEFORE pouring the concrete mix.
The phono-cable block-out can be another metal (or plastic) tube (12mm or 1/2” diam.) which will extend from top to bottom of the mould (the cable will exit under the armpod) and be permanent.
The VTA block-out will be made of Styrofoam (cut to the correct size and depth) and taped to the inside face of the metal mould (the cutting of the Styrofoam need not be super accurate or beautiful but needs to be OVERSIZE.
The Styrofoam will be burnt out of the mould after curing of the concrete and we don’t want to be hacking concrete out of the mould because the VTA tower ‘misses’ by 2mm?

Most vintage arms rely of nuts to clamp the arm between a turntable ‘baseboard’.
In this situation, you can either…..finish the concrete lower in the mould to accommodate a 1/4” metal plate cut to size or…… even easier…..add the 1/4” metal plate to the top of the finished armpod and fix IT to the concrete via screws into drilled plastic plugs.
This metal top-plate needs to be drilled for the VTA tower and fixing nuts as well as the holding-down screws…..but this should be a piece of cake for any metalwork shop or indeed any DIY hobbyist at home.

Now for the comments and barbs……..
What do you think?

Halcro,
Makes sense as an inexpensive DIY solution. May not be as pretty as the DaVinci solution but there is no reason why it cannot be made reasonably pretty. The question I would have is how one can make really decent Micro-Seiki-like armbases to fit in the middle of the top plate, and have the top plate look really, really good.

The only way I can think of it is to make a very fine liquid "top" by turning it upside down (so top is down) on wax paper and pouring only the first 2-3 cm (with a styrofoam blockout for where the top plate and VTA tower will be). Then after that is done and mostly dry, pour the rest in around the blockouts and let dry. The first layer on wax paper, if wet at the very bottom, should create a super-smooth surface which can be finished as one likes.

T-bone,
Not sure I follow you on the tip-up and down bit?
If you want a glass smooth finish on the concrete?.......that is normally achieved by steel trowelling which is why I suggested screeding of the top surface with a metal flat edge as in a steel rule.
This will be equivalent to a steel trowel.

Otherwise, a machined metal top-plate to fit on top of the concrete, ensures a "really really good" finish.

Yes, you are probably right. The nest way to deal with the top is have a full-width metal top-plate.

T_bone, Why not use an actual M-S armboard (if you are using an M-S tonearm)? I think reproductions are made.

Halcro, You are obviously an architect. (I already knew that.) But doesn't all cement shrink to at least some degree whilst it is setting up, no matter how low the water content? And wouldn't even a small amount of shrinkage cause the inner cement cylinder to pull away from the walls of the metallic tube? Thus, could the cement cylinder become loose and actually fall out of the tube?

By the way, this issue of "shrinkage" was covered in a Seinfeld episode.

Lewm your comment on the cantilevered arm board pod was visualized completely.

It's just another design method that would be an easy build, fairly inexpensive and very convenient with use.

More importantly emphases are on further isolating tone arms from imposing colouration's including help reducing vibrations of all sorts by way of experimenting with arm board material type.

Dear In_shore, What you say is also well and good. I further still maintain that the tt and armpod ought ideally to be in unison, so use similar strategy to isolate both tt and tonearm, a la the Da Vinci. I would not favor using a Da Vinci or similar armpod with a tt that was sitting on AT616 feet, even though I know that others here are doing something akin to that and getting what they interpret to be great results. I think that might mean that the level of our concern regarding structure borne and internally generated forces amounts to massive overkill.

I dont agree with pods but I have thought about mounting a cantilivered armboard off the plinth using 3 mini spikes machined from grub screws so they are adjustable ( for levelling the armboard relative to the turntable bearing ) and using a nylon nut and bolt through the centre of the triangle formed by the grub screws to anchor the board. This arrangement would give you true 3 point mounting, energy dissipation and levelling capability.

Dover: For whatever reason, cantilevered armboards appear to increase the bass volume and power, compared to non-cantilevered armboards. This is from my own experience, as well as from discussing these issues with other turntable designers.

Still, if I were to design an ultimate turntable, it would have a low-noise platter bearing, an ultra-rigid connection between platter bearing and tonearm pivot (ideally machined as one piece), a helluva lot of moment-inertia in the platter, and even greater moment-inertia in the plinth (which would be designed for low structural and cavity resonances).

The complete turntable would be integrated with a self-levelling air isolation platform, which would rest on a stone column that goes directly into the ground, without any contact with the floor of the listening room. Surrounding the turntable (but not contacting it) would be a double-wall acoustic shield, vacuum-evacuated between the walls to minimize energy transmission.

cheers, jonathan carr (using 60kg solid zinc plinth to connect platter to tonearm)

Hmmm Jonathan,
Sounds like a typical listening room to me? :^)
Lewm,
The shrinkage of concrete is greatly determined by the water content.....the greater the water content, the more the shrinkage. (George knows what I'm talking about).
I doubt that concrete designed to set under water has much shrinkage.
My experience has been that concrete, as it cures, tends to stick to its edge formwork tenaciously, with most shrinkage occurring within its main body via shrinkage cracks.
That's why great care is usually taken to coat the formwork with 'releasing' agents so that it can be stripped away fairly easily.
If one were worried, or had experiences of the concrete shrinking from it's mould.......one could ensure the internal face of the cylindrical mould was coated with a rough epoxy film to which the concrete would cling.

You actually pre-empted another design I had which was for exposed concrete armpods.
In this case, the metal cylinders would not be permanent formwork, but would be coated with form-release agents so that after initial cure took place, the concrete could be released from its mould by a hammer tap to its top or bottom. This would allow many pods to be cast from the same mould and even pods of different heights to be cast.
The bare exposed surface of the concrete pod cylinder could then be left 'as-is'......or painted as one wished.

Jonathan - nice to hear from a fellow 60kg SPZ plinth owner - only point I would debate would be the air suspension, still think the tt has to be grounded no matter how much mass you have in the plinth. Rf shielding in the wall & perhaps a sealed room with an assistant inside to turn the record over.. One point I note is the number of people who locate their turntables in resonant room corners or between the speakers where sound travels free and fast.

As time and my birthdays go by, I feel I am headed toward a Linn turntable, a solid-state integrated amp cum phono stage, and a pair of bookshelf speakers. My muscles and joints would love that system. Last night I had to carry just the power supplies for my new Sound Lab 845PX speakers up from my basement to my listening room. This awakened symptoms due to an old rugby injury to my cervical spine. It took four of us to uncrate the 845s and carry them into the house. (I timed their arrival to coincide with a visit from my son, from Tokyo, so I could count on his help.) I cannot lift my SP10 Mk3 in its 100-lb slate and wood plinth without assistance and can barely lift the L07D. I don't look forward to carrying my 90-lb tube monoblock amplifiers up the steps from my basement to the listening room, either. This is despite the fact that I lift weights, do push-ups, and do a cardio work out every day. This talk of massive pods and plinths puts me off, even though I subscribe to the theory. High end audio is for young athletes or for those of us with grown sons who have not yet left home.

Dear Lew, In the first place congratulation with your birthday. In the second with your Lab 845 PX. Since you are still working I assume that you are a young gentleman in
comparison with some other members. Except for those two facts
(the birthday and the Lab) I don't believe a single word of the rest of your complaints. I hope your Lab 845 PX will surpass your expectations.

Kind regards,

Dear Nikola – you said.

I 'assist' ( by looking) my machinist while
he was busy to cut from a billet of bronze a collar for my
Pioneer P-70 tonearm.

For your information – here in North America machine shop rates are by the hour and are based on the following criteria.

$ XX – tell him what you want and go away – come back to pick it up.

$ XXX – if you want to watch him make it

$ XXXX – if you want to watch him and also ask questions.

Now I know at least a couple of us have spare sp10 mkII’s sitting idle ? Well my 2nd sp10 mkII recently got set up in the city. I am satisfied with the sound but being this a hobby I need to get more height on the footers to accommodate another armpod that I am planning on making.

Now I naively thought that all Australians were as nice as Henry. How greedy that person is on ebay asking what he is for those AT 616’s.

This got me thinking. I believe I had a mini epiphany. I was so pumped about it and its simplicity that I had to head over to the local machine shop to see if the costs were in line. The costs were so I had some made. Attached is a picture of them.

http://cgim.audiogon.com/i/vs/i/f/1314300811.jpg

These are 5 inches high and made from One Inch diameter solid stainless steel and have adjustable threads. I have just installed them, may get some time to listen before we go away for the weekend. Any comments from those that have direct experience with Nude Sp10’s ?

Well ok I will open it up to all ? I have a thick layer of Teflon.

I have found that different footers on TT’s change the sound dramatically. Any guesses on how the sound will change from the Pneumatic AT616’s ? They are coupled to 4 inches of solid maple that is isolated on three metallic filled legs spiked to the house basement slab.

Oh I almost forgot – Material and labor $48 cash for all four. I had to go away for a couple of hours and come back to pick them up.

BTW – thank you very much Henry for teaching me how to add links and pictures. What a PITA it is an archaic outdated system.

Cheers

Dear Nandric, I am working at this point because I still need income, not because I am too young to retire. The speaker maker, FYI, is called "Sound Lab". They are located in Utah. The full name of the product I bought is "Majestic 845PX", a fairly pompous name, as I am sure you would agree. They are basically giant full-range electro-static speakers. I have a lifelong love/hate relationship with ESLs driven by output transformer-less (OTL)tube amps. I sent my old smaller Sound Lab M1s back to the factory for rebuild, and while they were away got a great deal on the 845s, an offer that I could not refuse, if you have seen The Godfather. While all this has been going on, I have been listening to Quad ESL63s for several months. That's a speaker more suitable for someone in our age range with a bad back. I know this is way off-topic, but it explains why I cannot think about messing with arm pods or de-plinthification (thank you, George W Bush) at this time.

Dear Chris, You made some kind of drilling (oil) platform
for your SP-10. Looks to me more convincing than the AT footers below the cover because this cover is very questionable as support. I would add the Stillpoints underneath the the steel 'points' for some damping. I assume that the threads are made in the SP-10 frame? This way you don't need the AT 616 and than (as seller)will probable have some other perspective reg. other Australians than Henry.

Regards,

Dear Lew, You must feel 'Majestic' at present. The
rumours even in Holland are that you now own the best speakers in the world; anyway the best electrostatics ever.
Then you have your both sons near you so you must be a very happy guy at the moment. Hope your sons also love jazz.

Regards,