Cartridge ISOLATION; What Say You?

I don't understand why some folks seem to think that the tail wags the dog.There is no movement of the cartridge when an elastomer is tightly clamped between the body of the cartridge and the tonearm mounting plate. My Graham 2.2 comes with what appears to be a velour covered gel pad below the tonearm mounting surface, and thus provides some damping properties. I would not consider to defeat this built in damping, nor add to it.

@rauliruegas,

Touché!

Dear @mijostyn :  did you try/test that kind of isolator between the top plate of the cartridge and the tonearm headshell? or what you posted in the thread is only non first hand experience proved " imagination "/hypothesis or the like.

R.

Lets make this as simple as possible.

The turntable supplies the energy the groove uses to force the stylus to vibrate in any combination of two directions, up and down, side to side. In an ideal world the cartridge body would remain absolutely still. It would not vibrate or resonate at all. However due to the fact that the stylus is suspended from the cartridge some of this energy is transferred to the cartridge body. Assuming the cartridge body does not ring the frequency this energy is transferred at depends on the stiffness of the cantilever's suspension and the mass of the cartridge. If the cartridge is solidly mounted to the tonearm you can add the effective mass of the arm to the mass of the tonearm lowering this frequency which all agree should be around 10 Hz. Putting a flexible material between the body of the cartridge and the tonearm add a second suspension with another resonance point determined by the stiffness of the material and the mass of the tonearm assuming the tonearm does not ring. Since this suspension is obviously stiffer than the one supporting the cantilever and the effective mass of the tonearm is lighter than the effective mass of the tonearm plus the cartridge, this resonance frequency is going to be much higher. If it winds up in the audio band it will be audible and represent distortion. If it is above the audio band it will inaudible except maybe to members of the tweaky gang. Is such a device going to dampen any ringing? I suppose it could but I would rather have a cartridge body and tonearm that do not ring. Good tonearms and cartridges do not ring so adding a secondary suspension can either do absolutely nothing or add an audible resonance which is obviously not good.

this is what got me excited:

" HS-A02 comes carefully packed in a special protective foam-padded box."

The Korf is ceramic

Look up the Korf headshell

The most efficient and effective means of absorbing and dissipating cartridge mechanical energy is via employment of a damping trough (containing viscous fluid) located at the front end of the arm, as found in the series of Townshend Audio Rock turntables.

The design of The Cartridgeman‘s Insulator is precisely addressing that issue while avoiding your concern of cartridge displacement by choosing a polymer too stiff to be displaced by the cantilever, which displacement -as you point out yourself- is magnitudes smaller than the former. On my system (Zyx Universe, Dynavector DV 507MkII) the benefit is so obvious, that I can only recommend that people try it rather than defer to principle based pontification.

If the cartridge transmits vibration to the arm, the arm hasn't done its job properly. But its a simple fact that no arm is perfect in this regard. So what really becomes the question is whether the arm tube should be damped to absorb such vibration or whether you want to decouple the cartridge from the arm in trying to do the same thing?


From an engineering perspective damping the arm tube seems the more elegant approach. But this is by no means universal so you may well perceive a difference (hopefully better). I alluded to this earlier.

@atmasphere,

MCs point on transmitting vibration from the cartridge body to the tonearm is seminal. The design of The Cartridgeman‘s Insulator is precisely addressing that issue while avoiding your concern of cartridge displacement by choosing a polymer too stiff to be displaced by the cantilever, which displacement -as you point out yourself- is magnitudes smaller than the former. On my system (Zyx Universe, Dynavector DV 507MkII) the benefit is so obvious, that I can only recommend that people try it rather than defer to principle based pontification.

^^ tonearm joint 

If I’m were not planning to use multiple cartridges; I’d melt a few dabs of a low-melting point solder like Tix into the head shell to tobrsrm joint; or locktite it. 

Dear @tomwh  :  "   has shown me most people have not had enough exposure and or interest in what real music sound like to even begin to evaluate a system.  "

But other people like you, me and some other gentlemans in this thread and out there have enough exposure to live MUSIC and know what is down there for sure in their systems and for some of us our main target or system premise is to stay truer or nearer to the recording.

""    So even if that is not what real music sounds like who cares. If it makes you happy thats all that matters.  ""

Obviously it does not matters to you but there are MUSIC lovers/audiophiles that care about. 

The "cancer " in the jigh-end world and through the audio high end room/system audiophiles is something similar to what you posted with the expression: " I like it..." Who cares " I like it "

Mijostyn has a good point here to start a dialogue in the issue, we can agree or not with graphs or not.
 Which is your point here other that what you already posted. Is there something additional or that's it? or like you posted:

""  Just wild ass guesses posing as the truth...""

With and with out graphs there is something name it common sense that we all have in some different degrees levels and that are full of what we experienced through our audio/MUSIC life. Yes, your common sense as mine is specific and singular to each one of us. 


Regards and enjoy the MUSIC  NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

I have both of those Jim.

for those seeking unified field theory of a Tower of Power and reference grade recording, seek out the excellent Sheffield Labs Thelma Houston release. For the discerning get both the D2D and Treasury ( made from RtR realtime copy )…..

I believe a robust comparison, level matched is instrumental in educating the ear/brain…

fun

the footpath upward if not well worn is at least visible, especially if one were to be introspective and look backwards…. Yes Ralph, i agree. D2D. Such is your and other greats history; Direct Grace, M and K Real Time, Sheffield Labs, Chasing the Dragon, Water Lilly…

Carry on !

the majority of our live experiences today are amplified. individual acoustic guitars with pickups, upright bass with pickups, mics, guitar amps with speakers, stage located speakers (musician monitors and front facing), wall of sound, ceiling hung speakers, ....

The many times we saw him, Tony Bennet demonstrated filling Radio City Music Hall a capella with no mic, all the way to the upper decks, but he sure sounded better using a mic and the house system.

the space's acoustics; which seat's you get; sound system engineer's skills; some are awesome, some truly suck, big medium or small.

lps, the recording space, the equipment and engineer's skills and all the subsequent decisions by all the people at every stage  are paramount to enjoyable or superior playback.

IOW, it's hit or miss, live or recorded, and I could care less about the difference between .... and .... just gimme something really enjoyable.

I've walked out of many live performances, refused to go to certain venue, .... knowing it SUCKS compared to what I enjoy at home.

I once had the experience of hearing a modestly skilled sax player perform in my listening room, standing between my pair of Sound Lab 845PX speakers. Now THAT was a real lesson in comparing live sound to reproduced sound in my system.  I was actually quite pleased with the degree to which my system could sound "live" next to the real thing.  But single instruments in free space are easiest to replicate.  I don't pretend my system could do as well with a full orchestra, if that was possible to demo in my listening space.  One thing that always strikes me when I get to hear musicians live and unamplified is the dynamics.  Live music is first of all more dynamic than most of us can achieve at home, or at least that is the biggest challenge to replicate.  All that audiophile stuff about imaging and depth is nice to think about, and establishing those two senses is a worthy goal in stereo, but in real life one cannot always place the musicians in space with eyes closed, either side to side or front to back.  What one can sense is the startling undistorted SPLs effortlessly achieved by live musicians.

With all due respect to fans of TOP (I am not one), I am thinking that a casino PA system is not likely to enchant me.  But for all I know, the named venue is set up like a real concert hall.

string quartet in the mastering room….what an idea….

w both high speed tape and a really good ADC ( Wadia 17 ), imagine that….

Or direct to disc.

The simple answer is the device may compensate for some design flaws in lesser arms/tables and may change things in a way that some find to be better. While it may be a universal truth that it changes things, it is not a universal truth that it makes things better

+1 exactly and eloquently stated. I was trying to beat about the bush so as not to insult anyone's system, but this is the nub of it.

@chakster I concur.

Sadly The Cartridge Man aka Len Gregory passed away nearly a year ago! So his products are no longer available.
I’ve auditioned the Soundsmith Strain Gauge 210 and yes it is very detailed and revealing, but the Koetsu Rosewood Signature that I use is also in a similar realm, so until it is time to renew I’ll stick with it, only then may I push the boat out and buy a Strain Gauge  - as here in the UK it is considerably more expensive than in the US

With the cartridge we want some combination of materials structured so as to hold the cartridge firmly in a fixed relationship to the head shell, and yet at the same time have just enough flexibility on a micro level to dissipate cartridge vibration and not reflect it all right back down into the stylus.

It must be held rigidly, but yet also in a way that facilitates some vibration to dissipate into the more massive arm, while damping cartridge vibration, and all of this at the same time as not reflecting vibration right back down into the stylus.

It’s one or the other, your 2 stated goals are mutually exclusive. Either it is firmly fixed or it is not.

In an ideal world the cartridge body would have infinite mass so all movement would be the stylus/cantilever. Since that is impossible we have a variety of designs that approximate this by holding the body as rigidly as we can so the body does not move in response to the stylus/cantilever movement.

inserting some material between the cartridge and the head shell allowing the cartridge to vibrate in response will definitely affect this relationship so it will definitely affect the output of the cartridge. Declaring this change to be universally better is sort of silly if you think about it.

If this device is the panacea some of you declare then why don’t the cartridge designers build this into their devices? If their goal is the best sound they can get why ignore this very simple and inexpensive "enhancement. ?

The simple answer is the device may compensate for some design flaws in lesser arms/tables and may change things in a way that some find to be better. While it may be a universal truth that it changes things, it is not a universal truth that it makes things better


In my experience anybody spouting universal truths like below can generally be ignored.

Speakers and other components sound much better on springs. In all cases this is because

I own the original cartridge damping system in my Rock 7

From our long lost poster, geoffkait
I believe he wants $400 as well?

Well, I recently bought an Audiomachina 3.8g anti resonance shim. 

However it gets mounted above the headshell. And above a Miyajima Zero. 

@tomic601 , Do "Prime Directive" or "Not for Nothing" If you like them you can go in either direction. Back 30 years ago his music could get....difficult. He was with Miles from 1968 thru 1970. The Quintet is my favorite. It features Robbin Eubanks on trombone and Chris Potter on sax. These two play off each other brilliantly. 
@mr_m , If you are talking about either of the two records above I beg to disagree. Both are nicely crafted studio recordings with no over tubs or fake sh-t.  They are just like you hear them in person. 

I have yet to hear a Dave Holland recording of reference quality, at least for me, anyway...

Yes, i should have said anyone vs. you.

What Dave Holland do you suggest ?

string quartet in the mastering room….what an idea….

w both high speed tape and a really good ADC ( Wadia 17 ), imagine that….

We all craft our own references…

@tomic601 , I believe I said TOP was not to be used as a standard. No large venue system can be used as a standard. You have no reference.
Acoustic instruments are tops, Jazz is great. Bands with individually amplified instruments can also be used. The Dave Holland Band is a great example. Everyone is amplified except the drums. They use the same set up recording that they use on stage. I've seen them three times and their records sound exactly like they do live. Dave's bass has a lot of character and he takes frequent solos. Great for evaluating bass performance down to 40 Hz or so. 
In Boston we have the Regatta Bar and Skuller's, smaller venue bars seat maybe 100 people at the most. 
Don't forget classical music either. String quartets are great for evaluating imaging. 

@lewm , I think you may be on to something. 

Oh the days… I used to cath live Jazz, no amplifiers at a fantastic bar in Charleston - High Cotton

… oh the days, and nights

In one eye and out the other, love it.

a steady diet of unamplified acoustic instruments and voices in a reverberant space is the reference. Otherwise chasing your tail.

iF amplified Tower of Power ( a great band over these many many years BTW ), is your reference then I suggest Meyer Sound  gear… 

Can you please tell me what tomwh is talking about?

@mijostyn No, I can't.

"a new isolator... is immaterial".  That's it! The perfect isolator is no isolator.

Years ago I built my own cartridge isolator and yes it makes a difference. I have abandoned it as I use better cartridges now. The whole idea of f=ma or whatever science formula using to prove a point doesn’t exactly jive as the vibration of the damping needed isn’t close enough to the dampening maximum provided by the isolator. It’s like a mouse pushing on the side of a building, sure it’s pushing but can you measure it? I won’t even try a new isolator as I feel it’s immaterial to my current cartridge choices.

@lewm , I saw Tower of Power at the Hampton Beach Casino three weeks ago. As good as ever but not the best sound system. Not a situation you would want to use as a standard but their current singer has the largest lungs I have ever heard. Guy can belt out a tune for sure. Saw Wilco 2 weeks ago. Jeff Tweedy is a piece of work. Better sound system but but still not suitable to use as a standard to evaluate Hi Fi sound.
@atmasphere , Was that you talking or someone else? I certainly could not have said it better. It seems to have gone in one eye and out the other. Can you please tell me what tomwh is talking about? 
The only thing I care to add is that mass does not provide isolation from low frequency disruptions like foot falls and environmental rumble. It will diminish higher frequency pollution. To get rid of low frequency noise you take the rigid platter, tonearm, cartridge sub chassis and hang it from springs tuned to a very low frequency or place it on something like a MinusK platform. 
@tomwh , you are entitled to believe whatever you want, whatever that is.

@lewm yes, sadly the steady diet has diminished big time… 

I am a fan of New Yorker ;-) My lovely has the digital subscription… so i benefit….and The Economist in the same breath.

These days, he's not widely recognized. Surely not a "fringe company"

Making a Claim about the Proprietor of the Company or their History in the HiFi Industry is something I did not refer to.
I am very up to date on the Companies Products and the History of the Proprietor.

I did make a statement about the Companies Position in the Market
Fringe Company - Not Part of the Mainstream - Peripheral - At the Extreme, I think I am reasonably accurate with this assessment.

I have no objection to how or where a person spends their hard earned cash, my storage boxes are full of unused items from such spending.

In saying that though, Long-Term buried and very difficult to find Rothwell Attenuators, once found, proved to be a very valuable reintroduction recently, especially the -15db.

Thank you for the response Jim! I'll PM you.

Sadly, the opportunity to hear live musicians playing music is dramatically reduced in the Washington DC area, and I imagine it is reduced in most American cities of note. Thanks to the pandemic for that. We used to attend concerts or clubs for live music once or twice a month. I’d guess we’ve done it 2-3 times in the past 18 months. Two of our favorite jazz clubs have shut down permanently.


tom and tomic, your exchange reminds me of a long article on rational thought and discourse that appeared in the New Yorker in the last 3 weeks.

+1000
Tomic601

Tom - yes, please remove the log from my eye !

Hey grasshopper aka tomic601. If you can take the DHT tubes out of the SET and build a transformer coupled push/pull. Now you can rock and roll but still hear that wooden cello.

I think people make this way to hard. When the cello plays at your house you will probably FEEL HEAR a beautiful wooden string instrument. Nice full body no electronic sound no harness. You probably will not be listening for black background or air around instrument, Soundstage etc... You will be able to hear the tone, attack, has much as a cello can do, decay etc...

I guess the moral of the story is when it is all said and done weather in is high mass or low mass this profile or that , rigid or flexible etc... How does it sound when it hit my ears. So if the graph does not support my findings then I will have to support my ears. Can not hear without my ears but I can listen without looking at the graph.

The sad part is this thread did not even get to graphs . Just wild ass guesses posing as the truth. So grasshopper I will leave you with this quote I read way back then. " I do not know what I am more upset about judgmental people or my judgment of judgmental people???"

Enjoy the ride
Tom

I am no Rega fanboy, but I find the approach taken in their flagship TT to be very interesting: Super low mass plinth made of materials that are not likely to store energy efficiently and of low enough mass also to further reduce energy storage, but with a rigid beam connecting the base of the tonearm mount to the bearing assembly. I'd like to hear it.

@lewm I'm not a fan of Rega either, but that plinth design sounds like what I'm talking about.

@boxer12 Hi Tim - The wizardry of Glen Croft in the UK - Croft RIAA - RS rare single chassis model chock ablock full of Nos tubes from Andy of Vintage Tube Services in Michigan…near you.

I can send it to you, it gets a winter nap here….

@tomwh thx. I do rebel against Van Morrison; No Guru, No Method, No Teacher. I do have a sensei. Every now and then i snatch the pebble….

i don’t think there is anything wrong with goal seeking around pleasure - my belief is the SET camp is hopelessly colored yet incredibly addictive audio tone color crack…. 

I think Ralph makes a very excellent, nuanced and hyper esoteric and yes ultimately expensive point. A steady diet of acoustic live music recorded w minimal devices in the chain in natural reverberant space while witnessing the event becomes the reference and a tool for discernment…

as close as many will get and Of note is Water Lilly, Vandersteen ( 2 discs ), any number of the D2D labels, Opus3, Wilson Audiophile, and Lederman : Direct Grace. 

This allows discernment and the ability to  hear where in the chain it all goes to @#$&*&$#@.

hard to do right ? Maybe..

I do plan a Cellist at next listening party. I have a Zoom6 mini recorder….. what will we hear ? i also have a cold cathode preamp on the way w variable bias ( thd ), so same listening panel can vote on the distortion flavor profile they like….

fun

Ralph, Have you had any hands-on experience with the Rega P10?  I am no Rega fanboy, but I find the approach taken in their flagship TT to be very interesting:  Super low mass plinth made of materials that are not likely to store energy efficiently and of low enough mass also to further reduce energy storage, but with a rigid beam connecting the base of the tonearm mount to the bearing assembly.  I'd like to hear it.

Mijostyn  I want  to get a degree in vibration  from the school you went to.  To be able to know proofs without testing or research  could save a person alot of time.  Miller carbon at  least  brings up the many variables , known and unknown  , which are in play.  

You need to talk to Lewm and / or read  reviews on the RS lab tonearm.  It breaks your wild quesses to dead.  Is it the best?  Who knows which cart system etc...  

You might want to read tomic 601 posts.  He refers to alot of the issues on this forum.  Hasty generalization  is one of them.  You will have to know what that means, as  he defines it quite  eloquently.   He also brings up,  know your guru's  taste  in music reproduction.  My own research  has shown me most people  have not had enough exposure  and or interest  in what real music  sound like to even begin to evaluate  a system.  You can have  100 degrees  in engineering,  mechanics , physics  and be tone deaf.  The Ad copy  guys can write anything.  The engineers can tell the ad copy guys whatever.

So we are  back to try the gizmo or make your own.  Then you  will know first hand if you like it or not.  Then you will know ,in your system,  if it get you closer  to what YOU want.  So even if that is not  what real music sounds like who cares.  If it makes you happy  thats all that matters.

^^This.
If the cartridge is moving with the stylus it will have less output. But it isn't; its mass and that of the arm is magnitudes higher than the stylus and cantilever. At any given instant the arm is relatively still so in fact the stylus is moving in the groove with respect to the cartridge body.

The more the system deviates from this simple fact the more coloration it will have. Decouple the cartridge from the arm, even if that decoupling provides some damping, and you increase coloration. If you want to damp the arm the place to put that is probably on the top side of the headshell so while the cartridge is properly coupled to the arm, any excess vibration (which really shouldn't be there in theory; the better the arm the more it approaches this ideal) can be damped.

I recommend for anyone engaging in this sort of stuff if you really want to know what's going on, study the engineering of turntables, arms and cartridges and then build one that works. That is what I did; its how I can state with absolute certainty that the best turntable and pickup will have the platter rigidly coupled to the base of the arm and neither the bearings of the platter or arm will have any slop. Further, the plinth will be dead and massive so it can resist airborne vibration. The rigidity is there so if there is vibration transmitted to the turntable system from its platform or the like the pickup will be unable to transduce it. And finally of course the tonearm is also rigid and dead (arm tube is damped) so the cartridge, which is rigidly coupled to the arm, can do its job.


If you deviate from this ideal there will be coloration plain and simple no ifs and or buts.


Some years back a friend of mine developed the Analog Survival Kit which was sold by Sumiko. It was basically a polymer wrap for the arm tube that allowed you to damp the arm tube of vibration. It worked because it did not interfere with the coupling between the arm and cartridge. You did have to be careful about effective mass and resulting mechanical resonance though. 


One of the most challenging issues I had to face as a manufacturer was how to establish a reference. What was I hearing when I played any recording? How much of the coloration in my system was influencing what I thought I was hearing? That was tricky and the only way I could figure my way out of it was thru professional recording equipment, which I had to assume was competent since it made the recordings we listen to. So we got some mics and I had a musician play in front of them and we compared what we heard to the mic feed in the stereo. This taught us very quickly what was going on. Since I've been running a recording studio since the 1970s (Steve Tibbetts recorded 'Yr' in my first one) I've had access to master tapes which I've often used for reference.


My point here is you have to know what you are hearing. If there are colorations in your system of which you are unaware, its very common to introduce other colorations that might seem as if you are approaching a more neutral presentation. But IME synergies don't work; you're far better off if each bit of your system stands on its own merits and does not need the brightness or darkness of another component in order to work.

Vibration dissipation? The cartridge body should not vibrate at all. Any vibration of the cartridge body is distortion. The best way to keep a cartridge from vibrating is to fix it firmly to a very rigid structure with enough mass to get the resonance point of the cartridges suspension down to 10 Hz. Above 10 Hz the system is rigid. Below 10 Hz the tonearm is free to move. Adding another suspension between the cartridge and tonearm adds another resonance point which is going to be much higher than 10 Hz and it will not isolate the cartridge from anything occurring below that resonance point. It may well be within the audio band which will cause ringing. I can not imagine any circumstance where this would be beneficial. Nobody I know of makes a tonearm that bad.