et-2 damping trough-good idea or not?

Raul, this is possibly not the place for this ancillary discussion, so apology to the OP for the diversion.

I could not disagree more with your premise, as you often state, concerning “faithfulness to the recording”. First, of course it is true that complete neutrality is not possible from an audio system; but, it most certainly can be mimicked. Mimicking the characteristics of live music is, after all, the goal of our hobby, is it not? We try and get as close to it as possible. The reason that I believe your premise is mistaken is simple. The damage that the recording process does to the sound of music and the resulting deviations from “neutrality” are FAR greater than differences in sound from one performance/recording venue to another. One can become intimately familiar with the sound of live music and be able to make a fairly good assessment of how far from neutrality the sound coming out of our speakers strays from neutrality. However, when one considers the number of variables that impact the sound of the original event during the recording process due to everything from the particular mics used, cables, board, sound processing equipment, recording device, mastering, pressing and on and on, not to mention the choices made by the recording engineer, the important question remains: HOW DO YOU KNOW? How do you know what the actual sound is on the recording after being subjected to all those unknowns; and, just as importantly, is now going to be subject to the imperfections of your audio system and listening room?

By your own admission your system is “far away to be perfect”. They all are. In my experience the problem is usually that most audiophiles don’t appreciate the extent to which sound systems deviate from the sound of live. The deviation is huge. The best we can do is, in fact, to try and mimic that sound. The best and really the only way to accomplish that is to use the sound of live as a reference and accept the fact that, as much as we would like to think otherwise, it is all a sonic soup to which one adds or subtracts a little of this and a little of that in order to achieve a balance that mimics the real as closely as possible.

Raul, I realize that your audio system is perfection exemplified to the degree that only components which are themselves perfect and absolutely neutral in the truest sense of the word and completely free of distortions of any kind merit their inclusion. Additionally, on a perfect system such as this adjustments of any kind, including resonance control, are unnecessary since perfection obviously cannot be improved upon. I have sadly resigned myself to the reality that an audio peon such as myself has to attempt to maximize the performance of the lowly components in my audio system by nudging their aggregate sound in the direction of what more than fifty years around the sound of live acoustic instruments (for probably an average of four hours each and every day) tells my ears what neutrality (musicality) truly is.  Affirmation and the silver lining for me is that in the case of my chosen tone arm the designer of this piece of audio genius agrees with what those ears are telling me. 
Saludos.

Great explanations from Chris as always.  The only thing that I would add re the issue of “overdamping” is that the best results for me were achieved with the “paddle” just skimming the surface of the fluid.  The paddle can be adjusted up and down and if adjusted so that it sinks too far into the fluid it literally killed transient response.  Not only were high frequencies dulled, but dynamics suffered and the music became lifeless.  

Raul,

First, let’s establish that “overdamping” is necessarily a subjective term; well, at least the results are. Personally, I am not interested in convincing anyone of what “neutral” is. I know what I consider that to be and my observations and comments reflect that. Someone may prefer a sound that to me is covered and lacking hf air; or, one that, as I often hear, too bright and thin. Moreover, in the context of a system that is thin and bright sounding overall the result of overdamping at the tonearm/cartridge may APPEAR to bring the tonal balance closer to a particular user’s idea of what “neutral” sound is. Of course, overdamping can cause other sonic problems that may or may not be important to that listener.

**** Could that means that the ET2 with aluminum has a different overall design other than the aluminum build material down there? ****

I don’t know what you mean by “down there”, but if you are suggesting that the different materials would not, by themselves, have different sonic signatures then I would have to disagree. There are three different arm wand materials available each also having a different weight and necessarily different resonance characteristics. The magnesium arm wand is the heaviest and recommended for low compliance MC cartridges. All this is very analogous 😉 to what is being discussed currently in the “Diamond cantilever” thread and I think that a lot of the same principles apply. Re my comment:

**** With the aluminum wand (and my cartridges) it was a definite improvement. ****

Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. Please note that I wrote “was”. That suggests that I no longer use the damping trough since I have been using high compliance MM cartridges of late and the use of the trough robs too much hf air from the sound. This is what I referred to as “overdamping”. When I used the aluminum wand with MC’s the trough was beneficial; it helped control the high frequencies. When I acquired the heavier magnesium wand (not recommended for MM’s) the result with low compliance MC’s was much better than when used with MM’s, but when using the trough the result was also the reduction of hf air and detail. It all seems obvious to me. 

I hope that clarifies things for you. Perhaps Chris can chime in; I’m sure he can do a better job than I explaining all this.

**** If that " damping " does not affects the normal and " free tonearm/cartridge movements ****

It does.

**** what you are listening is what is in the recording ****

Is it not obvious that my comment was about comparisons of the sound on the same recordings without and then with the damping trough?

**** I’m not an expert with the ET-2 ****

On that point, we agree.

Regards.

.

Heed ct0517’s advice on all things ET2.  I would add that using the trough with the magnesium or carbon fiber warms may actually do more harm than simply negate the need for it by overdamping.  In my particular setup it caused the music to sound overly covered and lacking hf air.  With the aluminum wand (and my cartridges) it was a definite improvement.