New Townshend Rock 7 owner

Slaw, your appreciation for the Rock reminds me of why it's been my only table for over twenty years now. It replaced a VPI HW-19 Mk.2, which I liked a lot. The legendary turntable master Brooks Berdan was my go to hi-fi guy, and I was not his only Rock owner. It's been a well-kept secret for a long time, with a cult following in the States (much like the Decca/London cartridge). In England it has a much higher profile, some of the long time hi-fi magazine reviewers and editors using it as their reference table. John Bamford of Hi-Fi News & Record Review has both a Rock Reference table and the massive Townshend loudspeakers, another of Max Townshend's brilliant designs. The Rock turntable is the result of a design program at a mechanical engineering college in England, looking at the job of a turntable from the ground up. Max Townshend acquired the rights to manufacture the table as a commercial product, adding some of his own ideas to the design. 

One analogy made concerning it's sound is to that of a camera tripod. A camera mounted on a tripod of sufficient mass produces an image without the "blur" of a hand-held camera. Looked at in terms of the size of the groove modulations relative to the length of a tonearm, if a groove modulation were to be only less than an inch wide, the corresponding tonearm length would be many, many miles. While the back end of a tonearm is held firmly in place by it's bearings, the cartridge end is free to move freely, as it must. But it needs to be free to move only enough to allow it to follow and support the cartridge as it traverses the LP groove (both laterally, and vertically for LP warps), which is at very low frequencies (33 1/3 RPM is less than 2Hz). At higher frequencies (above the just mentioned mechanical frequencies, but below the arm/cartridge resonant frequency, ideally around 10Hz), the Rock front-end damping mechanically "locks" the tonearm's headshell to the table as securely as the rear-end bearings do the rear of the arm. Again looking at the arm in terms of it's size in relation to the LP groove, the headshell is vibrating like crazy, depending on it's design as to degree, in response to the mechanical energy being created by the cartridge and then passed into the headshell. The Rock damping absorbs and dissipates that vibration, removing it as a source of cartridge/tonearm-created "blur". The more energy a cartridge produces, the more of benefit is the Rock damping. It is for that reason the Rock is THE table for the Decca/London cartridges, which, being themselves undamped, create a huge amount of vibration, resonance, and microphony. But all cartridge/arm combinations have a resonant frequency, and the Rock damps that very effectively as well, whether the cartridge is microphonic or not.

But it's not just the headshell of the arm which is vibrating. The entire length of the arm is free to vibrate as well, creating resonances determined by the design of the arm. With the front end of the arm locked in place at audio frequencies, the ability of the arm to vibrate (and even, in strictly structural terms, bend) is drastically reduced. The criticism of the Rock from some (particularly the Linn crowd) is in it having an "overly-controlled" sound. I, myself, don't want to hear the ringing of undamped resonances, but that's just me! The damping trough is only one aspect of the Rock's unique design, but a major one.

Congratulations, Shaw, you are now a member of the Townshend Rock cult! Now, to really hear what's in your LP grooves, get yourself a London cartridge ;-).

Yeah Slaw, consider yourself fortunate to have nabbed your Rock! They don’t come up for sale often, their owners often never finding another table they would rather own. I hope to someday find a Rock Reference, reportedly the best of all versions. Except perhaps the upcoming one!

Noromance, the darkness you heard in the original Rock is probably why some people use lighter gauge silicon in their trough, others filling the trough to a lower level, both done to achieve less damping. The over-damped sound is likely one reason the Rock works so well with Decca/London cartridges, which can sound brash (especially older Deccas, and even moreso if they aren't loaded at 15k to 22k resistance and some capacitance, to flatten the high frequency resonant peak the cartridge has). I've heard the Mk.7 Rock, but only at shows and with unfamiliar LP's. It's undamped acrylic platter may have something to do with a brightness, which is not the case with my Elite's platter. It has an acrylic coated top, but is a plaster-of-Paris filled metal disc. No ringing in it! 

Great Slaw, Max is a really nice guy, and a very talented designer. He also makes cables, loudspeakers, a ribbon super-tweeter, and State-Of-The-Art isolation feet named Seismic Pods. Townshend products aren’t common or well known in the U.S., the company having a low profile and few dealers (same with EAR-Yoshino, also of British origin and sharing the same U.S. distributor).

The Mk.7 Rock was made in two versions, the original in a gloss finish, and the revised (Mk.7.1?) in matte. A Google search will reveal that the Rock is a well-kept secret, considered by those who’ve heard it as an absolute bargain, one of the world’s best turntables, and in some regards THE best.

Slaw, the play in the bearing of your Mk.7 Rock is troubling. The Elite Mk.2 version of the Rock (what I own) has an inverted bearing, the spindle being fixed to the plinth (rather than to the bottom of the sub-platter or full platter in tables having non-inverted bearings, such as Linn’s, VPI’s, Oracles, etc.), and the shaft the spindle is inserted into being part of the sub-platter (rather than being bolted onto the plinth or suspended sub-chassis, as in the tables just mentioned). The ball bearing that sits between the top of the spindle and the bottom of the shaft is located at the platter’s center of gravity, which aids achieving platter stability and low rumble. My spindle has a very thin, shallow channel machined into it, circling around it barbershop pole style, to draw lubricant from the bottom of the shaft and bring it to the top. Ingenious!

I attempted to find out if the Mk.7 Rock also has an inverted bearing, but all information about the Mk.7 has been removed from the Townshend Audio website, as a new version is in development, the table being currently unavailable. I would give Max a call in England and talk to him about the play in your bearing. I’ve spoken to him numerous times, both on the phone and at the Vegas C.E.S., and he was happy to talk. The U.S. distributor is not exactly a fountain of technical information, or help of any kind.

The London cartridges have a very unique sound, one not provided by even the most expensive moving coils imo. I call it "immediacy", other adjectives used to describe it being alive, startling clear, transparent, dynamic, and exciting. It IS the most dynamic cartridge around, both micro and macro. Affording very "fine" dynamic graduations, the cartridge is quite "snappy", with lightning-fast transients. Snare drum shots really "POP!". It does percussion like no other---drum smacks, the "click" of a drumstick on a cymbal, piano hammers-on-strings, stand-up bass strings being slapped, etc. The "attack" of the cartridge makes others sound slow. It also excels in instrumental textures---the sound of a bow being dragged across a violin’s strings can be felt as well as heard, and actually almost "seen", the rivets in a sizzle cymbal bouncing on the cymbal’s brass the same, the throat and vocal chords of a resonant singing voice, the sheen of a large orchestra’s string section, fingernails picking notes on an acoustic guitar’s wound steel strings, etc. And really deep, explosive bass! The bass register keys of a grand piano being pounded, tympani mallet felts striking calfskin heads, a bass drum pedal beater smacking a batter head, a standup bass string bouncing off the fretboard after being "yanked" away from it, a Fender electric bass playing a descending scale down to the open E string, the throaty roar of a pipe organ’s bass pedal notes at thunderous levels---pure exhilaration!

But the cartridge is ruthless in revealing any tonearm failings---rattling bearings, arm tube resonances, etc. That is because the cartridge has virtually no suspension, transmitting a lot of physical/mechanical energy straight into the arm (imagine a car with blown shock absorbers). It is for that reason that arms employing damping have long been recommended for Deccas and Londons. As should be obvious, the cartridge really benefits from the Rock’s front end damping. Like I said, a marriage made in Heaven!