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Review: KAB SL-1200 Fluid Damper Tweak

Category: Accessories

I got my KAB fluid damper kit for the Technics SL-1200 installed yesterday, and I managed to audition one cut twice in close proximity both with and without the damper, by playing it just before I put the silicone in the trough, and again just afterwards. I also replayed a few other things with the damper activated which I had just played the day before without. So these are my very initial impressions, and since I'm writing this after only one day, I'll have to post any further findings another time if need be.

The 1200 is not renowned as an audiophile TT, I know, and it is currently the only piece of equipment in my system which I have not upgraded to something 'better' and more expensive since becoming a real, practicing audiophile several years ago. However, I have never felt it was out of place in my improving system, and I have made a few tweaks to it along the way, which are detailed in the equipment profile below. (There are previously archived threads which address this question of the 1200's bona fides in detail, or just wait for Psychicanimal to respond here :-) In any case, I am certain that the 1200 is a perfectly legitimate test bed on which to base my report concerning the addition of fluid damping to an analog disk playback system.

First of all, let me say that this damper is a very nicely turned-out product, and it doesn't detract in any way from the appearance or operation of my SL-1200, but at half the price I originally paid for my whole TT/'arm new back in the 80's, there's not a lot of perceived value at $150 when you crack open the small foam-lined plastic box and find a little curved machined metal tray (embedded with a set screw for attachment to the 'arm's base, engraved with the KAB logo, and painted silver to match the 1200), a tiny plastic paddle with an integral collar and thumbscrew to tighten onto the 'arm (sourced from SME), a syringe of goopy fluid for filling the trough with (sans replaceable cap for storage, an ommission KAB should rectify), some fairly prefunctory instructions, and a hex key, although I don't doubt that KAB's return is fair on this quite specialized accessory. I was unprepared for just how viscous the 'viscous fluid' really was, never having used this type of damper before - that gunk be seriously thick.

In addition, I noted that the paddle which attaches to the tonearm presented less of a resistive 'face' to the fluid contained by the trough in the directions of motion (horizontal and vertical) than I was expecting might be the case (the KAB website has some good new pictures up of the damper in set-up and operation). Its broad side is a bit curved though, in the opposite direction of the curve about the pivot point made by the trough, and it is oriented at a slight angle to both the 'arm's arcing path of horizontal movement through the trough, and to the vertical component of a record warp, since it's not installed pointing straight down from the 'arm, but is offset about 10 degrees toward the direction of the platter.

I listened to three disks from the 60s, acoustic jazz from the Jazz Crusaders LP Uh-Huh, rock from The Who LP Sell Out, and pop from Gary Lewis & The Playboys LP New Directions, and two from the 70s, acoustic jazz from the McCoy Tyner LP Extensions, and rock from the Richard Lloyd LP Alchemy. The Jazz Crusaders 9 1/2 minute cut entitled "Blue Monday" was the track critically auditioned back-to-back first without and then with the damper. Differences noted with the damper in use were pretty consistent across all the cuts I auditioned.

OK, now to the listening. As a preface, let me say that I wasn't expecting huge changes, and I didn't hear huge changes. After all, everything else is staying the same besides the addition of the damper and paddle, so why shouldn't it sound more similar than dissimilar to the sound I have come to expect? I haven't listened for long yet, but I think I do already have a pretty good handle on what this product is going to do for the sound.

I certainly did look foward to some degree of positive improvements for my investment. However, as is often the case in actual practice, the improvements I got turned out to be not the ones I necessarily had in mind when I ordered my unit. I suppose after years of making step-by-step upgrades to my system, I should be better prepared at this point as to just what to anticipate for the next tweak or change. Yet I still manage somehow to be surprised as often as not, a situation which is funny to me, because there are definite similarities underlying a lot of the fundamental improvements I have experienced in the past - such as the principle Less Is Sometimes More.

I decided to acquire this tweak based partly on a set of expectations I had intuited from my deductions about how such a thing must work in operation. I reasoned, if the damper prevents the 'arm from dissapting as unwanted motion energy which should instead be going into forcing the stylus to faithfully transcribe the groove, then I should hear 'more'. More impressive dynamic peaks, more bass slam and weight, more soundstage space, more transient impact, maybe even a little more overall volume. There were a couple of things I was hoping for less of - less surface noise, less HF grain, although I wasn't consciously aware of any objectionable presence of the latter. KAB's inscription on the damper's box promises "deeper bass" and "clearer midrange", as well as "improved tracking", and Kevin A. Barrett (KAB) also mentioned that customers sometimes find more of a sense of 'time slowing down' when listening with the damper fitted, though I don't personally tend to subscribe to such notions myself.

Well, if I had been expecting 'more', in many ways 'less' is what I got, and the things I did get more of were generally not what I had suspected beforehand. In retrospect, everything I heard does make sense given what the damper ought to be doing, but it definitely took my experiencing it to arrive at that conclusion. The very first things I noticed when listening with the damper activated were the cymbals on The Jazz Crusaders cut. They were exhibiting greater HF extension now, and were noticeably smoother. I wasn't expecting that, but I liked it.

I tried to listen for deeper bass, or more explosive transients, but couldn't find them. The soundstage didn't really seem any more expansive than before. The horns did sound a little less foward now, though. When the piano solo came on, I realized that an obsidian-like sort of dark glassiness that had somewhat shrouded the instrument before, had been replaced with a more open, pillowy-natural gentleness as the keys were being purposefully tickled from the outside left rear of the soundstage. When the stand-up bass solo followed, the centered image floated in space just as effectively as before, but had lost a certain talky, PA-like quality to the sound of fingers on strings which had previously rendered it as more of an electronic reproduction of a bass, and instead sounded more naked and true.

I slowly started to realize that although the soundstage wasn't any 'bigger'-seeming, it was effectively deeper, because I could now 'focus my ears', so to speak, more precisely all the way to the backmost reaches and still maintain the sense of clarity and definition. It began to dawn on me that, instead of enhancing the leading edges of transients, what was actually happening was a cleaning-up of their after-effects. Everything within the soundstage was less perturbed by everything else.

Rather than seem incrementally louder, the overall volume, if anything, was actually slightly subdued with the damper doing its thing. But added background texture was reduced even futher, resulting in an apparent universal improvement in S/N ratio. I'm not talking about surface noise as such here, which I didn't notice too much one way or another on these relatively clean disks, but a reduction in what must surely be the artifacts of spurious vibrations and their reflections. The whole presentation sounded tidier, tighter, and clearer, the ever-so-slightly reduced apparent amplitude probably a function of the effective subtraction of reradiated stored energy in the form of ringing. Less is more.

Dynamic events taking place in different areas of the soundstage had less of an effect on one another, permitting the instruments to go about their business without smearing or the imposition of added harshness as compared to before. The result, prehaps paradoxically, was to make gains for my analog reproduction resembling some of the more favorable attributes of CD, for aspects such as separation and contrast, while at the same time actually adding liquidity through the removal of intermodulation. Decays, not the onsets, of transients were the big winners with the damper in place, exhibiting a newfound cleanliness and precision that allowed me follow the flow the music with less guesswork. Image focus became more crystalline-pure and unwaveringly stable, less prone to fluctuate with attacks and crescendos. Although I'm not big on the concept of 'pace', I would actually say that, if anything, the music now seemed to move along at a slightly brisker clip, unencumbered by the dragging disturbance of throwing a larger wake in its trail.

In the big picture, I'd characterize the changes wought by the addition of the fluid damper as being on the order of about 10% or so (quite good), but in the particular areas upon which it has its greatest effects, I'd say they were more like 50%, which I think is excellent. No, I didn't get 'more' bass or dynamics, but I got less of what the presence of such information in the grooves can do to the more fragile parts of the sonic tapestry. In my estimation, what I'm hearing now with the damper is more faithful to the music mastered into the vinyl than what I was extracting previously, mostly through the reduction (if not the outright elimination) of some of the more pernicious effects engendered by the process of attempting to trace microscopic squiggles with a flexibly mounted needle attached to the end of a freely swinging arm.

I have not yet tried to ascertain the improvements wrought, if any, on the trackability of warped records, or the possible effects of the damper on reducing susceptability high-level acoustic feedback, for instance, but I will post updates when/if further developments make themselves known to me. For now I am exploring and enjoying the smoother and cleaner ride through the grooves the KAB damper is affording my cartridge and tonearm.

Associated gear
Benz-Micro Glider M2 .8mv MC cartridge > Technics SL-1200 TT and 'arm (modified with: Symposium shelf underneath sitting on Focalpods soft footers, Michell delrin record clamp, MusicDirect polymer tonearm wrap, and Sorbothane replacement mat) > Camelot Technologies Lancelot battery-powered op-amp phonostage with 54dB gain (modified with 392-ohm Vishay VHS loading resistors and resting on Audioquest Sorbothane pucks) > Cardas Cross 1m RCA IC > InnerSound FET preamp (with Synergistic Research Master A/C Coupler PC) > Harmonic Technology Magic One 1.5m RCA IC > VTL MB-185 Signature circa-200w all-tube monoblocks (with Shunyata PowerSnakes Sidewinder PCs) > Cardas Cross 8ft speaker cable > Thiel CS2.2 3-way floorstanding full-range speakers > and all electronics fed from Audio Power Industries PowerWedge Ultra 116 PLC (balanced AC to front-end components) and supported on a Salamander Synergy Twin 40 rack. Everything is set up a comfortable distance away from walls in a medium-sized living room, with the listening distance being about 10ft.

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zaikesman

Showing 7 responses by zaikesman

zaikesman OP
3,017 posts
 
Twl and Sean, I think you both pick up on the gist of what I am talking about. The funny thing is that there definitely exists, at least for me, this unstated expectation - maybe even unconcious - that better should somehow = more. That if I don't get 'more' in an obvious way, I initially feel a little let down. And this persists, even though I've educated myself more than a few times to the contrary. I like the way you've catagorized the phenomenon, Sean. I think sometimes it's too easy to forget the reality of the situation is that gear can only have a destructive effect upon the signal, and all we can try to do is to minimize this. We get so accustomed to speaking in terms of what our gear 'gives' us, we lose sight of the fact the high end is really in large part about gear that simply is *less destructive* than equipment not as carefully designed and made.

I do want to make note of another quality I have heard with the damper. Even though high frequency range sounds, like the cymbals I mentioned in the review, sound more extended on top, the soundstage as a whole actually sounds a bit less airy. This reminds a lot of what I heard as I underwent the process of determining how to resistively load my cartridge at the phonostage. When I finally arrived at the value of around 400 ohms after many substitution trials, I knew I had found the most accurate response (to my ear) and the best combination of focus and liveliness, yet there was also a reduction in apparent soundstage airiness vs. running unloaded at 47k ohms. I concluded then, as I do again now, that a good part of this superficially pleasing quality is in reality spurious in nature, probably produced by unchecked resonances (the result of too little electrical damping in the case of the cart loading, and too little mechanical damping in the case of the arm without the fluid damper). This makes it clear that 'air' and 'HF extension' are not always necessarily the same thing, the difference being the distinction between something that's supposed to be a part of the signal, and something else that may be added to the signal by the system.

This observation jibes well with my sense of what live music actually sounds like. Indeed, I had the occasion a few months ago to hire a live string trio to play at a gathering in the very living room that my system is set up in (I think everyone ought to try this at home sometime). If I were to critique the sonics of this event as I might a hi-fi system, I would've said that it lacked a little for weightiness in the cello, attack in the violins, and detail and air in the soundstage. Ha! You know what? Music doesn't really sound like that, it just is.
zaikesman OP
3,017 posts
 
Donovan, thanks for posting your experiences and bringing a different perspective not only to this thread, but to this website I'm sure (I'm assuming for the moment that you arrived here by following the link Kevin recently put up on the KAB website - we don't seem to get too many working DJ's around here normally!).

Detlof, I second your thoughts on Sean's post, and wonder if you know that he may not be participating around here for a while in order to respond himself.

As for myself, I have left the 1200 fluid damper fitted continuously ever since I first installed it, but in the meantime have upgraded both my preamp and my speaker cables, so a second comparitive assessment with and without the damper may be in order (what I plan to do is simply rotate the paddle completely out of the fluid but leave it attached to the tonearm for consistency and to eliminate the need for rebalancing, and I also want to make before and after CD-R recordings of the results).

Soon my TT will go to KAB to have the 78rpm mod installed, and I may also come back bearing Kevin's latest accessory, a dedicated outboard SL-1200 power supply, for testing in my system...
zaikesman OP
3,017 posts
 
Sean: I personally have never had a problem with high-level acoustic feedback at home with this TT, before or after the fluid damper was fitted, though I've witnessed it happen with some of the Euro-changers of yore. But Donovan's post would seem to confirm that the plinth and platter of the 1200 are already well-nigh insusceptable to exitation through airborne feedback, and that simply damping the tonearm virtually eliminates the possibility. I guess that's part of why DJ's use 'em, among other virtues.

As folks who read the review at top will know, I had already installed a tonearm-damping polymer wrap on mine before getting the fluid damper. The wrap, of course, is just a static damper, while the KAB is a dynamic damper. But since I never had a feedback problem, and since the wrap isn't coming off easily, I can't comparitively report on whether static damping alone can impart a meaningful portion of the benefit for DJ's that Kevin's device alone seems to. Some audiophiles may question whether my 'arm will be 'overdamped' with all of this tweakage in place, but I note that the highly regarded SME V 'arm is damped both statically (internally) and dynamically (fluid trough).

Psychic: I discussed the wire issue with Kevin, and he prefers not to get into any rewires of the tonearm or the lead-out cables. He mentioned you were intending to do this, so can you report your results of the procedure if and when you do it? Kevin does tell me that either the Mk. III or IV version of the 1200 (I forget which, or maybe both - I believe these are just versions that have been ergonomically modified to suit DJ needs even better) comes with a chassis-mount output-jack for external interconnects, but is unsure if he can get this part separately from Panasonic...
zaikesman OP
3,017 posts
 
Thanks for visiting this thread to post your impressions Mike. It sounds as if you heard pretty much the same improvements I did. Based on my experience with the TD-1200, I tend to think that any competing 'arm that lacks dynamic fluid damping may be at a disadvantage in some ways, and understand why many premium 'arms incorporate the technique.

BTW, for anyone interested in the KAB damper - and especially for those who've already tried and liked it - I'm pleased to be able to report that Kevin's recently-introduced external power supply for the SL-1200, the PS-1200, represents an even larger and more fundamental upgrade for the performance capability of this turntable. I'll post a full review soon in a separate thread.
zaikesman OP
3,017 posts
 
Thanks Joe, I did not (for reasons unrelated to the worthiness of the PS as a review subject), but see my post on Ekobesky's formal review of the SL-1200.
zaikesman OP
3,017 posts
 
Update: I recently received a new paddle assembly from KAB, to replace the original that I busted by accident. During the interem while awaiting my new paddle's arrival, I was reminded, in the first absence of active damping from my tonearm since I started this thread, just how much this modification does for the sound.

Anyway, it turns out that the old, outsourced plastic paddle (which attached to the tonearm by means of a hinged plastic collar with plastic thumbscrew, that fitted around the armtube) has been replaced by one of Kevin Barrett's own design, nicely made (like the fluid trough) of machined aluminum to match the turntable chassis deck. I don't know how long this upgrade has been in effect, but now that I have it I wanted to report on it.

The new paddle attaches, by means of a machined-slot/metal set-screw combination (again similar to the trough and the way it attaches to the base of the stationary gimbal support), not to the hollow armtube itself, but to the small, solid cast-aluminum side-arm that protrudes inward from the bearing-housing piece that carries the armtube, whose regular function is to interface with the hydraulic arm-lift actuator.

This is an ingenious solution (that doesn't interfere with the arm-lift), and because it's constructed of one solid aluminum piece, should last forever (unlike, as I found out, the former plastic version). And not only is its appearance more integrated with the turntable, it also looks to me like this paddle presents a larger surface area for the fluid in the trough to act upon.

(See a photo here -- the KAB paddle is just below and to the right of the locked armrest, although you can't see its business end from this vantage point. The armlift actuator -- as opposed to the lever -- is the curved black rubber-topped piece nestled behind the curved aluminum KAB damper fluid trough.)

Unlike the previous paddle however, which could be rotated about the tonearm to achieve different immersion angles and depths into the viscous silicone damping fluid, the user cannot adjust this new paddle -- it has one fixed, presumably correct, position. That's fine with me -- one less thing to play around with and get wrong. You can still adjust the level of the fluid in the trough as you wish to control the total amount of immersion and therefore damping.

The only downside of this arrangement is that you also lose the ability to rotate the paddle out of the trough entirely in order to make balancing of cartridges go quicker. (Of course you can't simply remove the paddle from the tonearm since subtracting its weight would change the balance.)

So if you don't like rebalancing your cartridge/headshell swaps with the paddle still in the fluid, the only way to go is to remove the trough itself, a bit more of a hassle which probably means (if you're not to risk making a sticky mess with the silicone) carefully removing and cleaning the paddle first, then removing the trough, then reinstalling the paddle and setting your balance, then going through the reverse to reinstall the trough. Personally, when I installed my replacement paddle for the first time, I just lived with it being immersed in the fluid -- since my trough was already installed and filled -- and simply allowed the required extra settling time when setting the tonearm balance, and this is what I'd suggest you do too for any rebalancings after the initial setup. (After all, the tonearm is ulitmately going to be played with the paddle in the fluid, so why not leave it there for set-up too?)

I suppose the only other reservations that some fanatic (like me) might come up with about the new paddle is that its attachment point has moved about half an inch closer-in to the pivot-point from before (theoretically, the ideal damping point would be out at the headshell, far away from the pivot), and the fact that the damper no longer attaches directly to the armtube itself, but to a separate piece that is in turn attached to the armtube. But I think these items are probably of about zero importance all told. (Oh, and you will need more than your fingers to install this version of the paddle, you will need the correct Allen key, same one as for attaching the trough -- lock your tonearm first and use the short end, the clearance is a bit tight but it's no problem if you go slowly and use appropriate care.)

If you own an older TD-1200 damper with the plastic paddle, it's an under-$30 upgrade to switch to the current version, and one I would recommend purely for aesthetic and durability reasons. (As you may have surmised, I can't do a direct sonic comparison between the new paddle and my old one, since that's both broken and thrown away, but puh-leeze...I wouldn't bother anyway.) As a possible bonus on the side, assuming the metal paddle is unavoidably somewhat heavier that the plastic one, if your cartridge is slightly too lightweight to use with Technics' screw-in auxillary counterweight attachment, you might be able to do it with this paddle attached. Adding the auxillary counterweight, and the resulting repositioning of the main counterweight closer to the pivot-point, could have a side-effect of favorably impacting residual tonearm resonance.

On the other hand, if you have a Technics 1200 (or are thinking of buying one) but haven't gotten Kevin's damper kit yet, you should know that he hasn't raised the price since introducing the new paddle, even though I'd imagine his cost for engineering and subcontracting manufacture of this bespoke part has got to have taken a bite out of his bottom line. So nice job KAB of making a good product better while holding the line on the price.
zaikesman OP
3,017 posts
 
Hi Detlof, and thanks for checking in on me :-) I may not have been "cured" as you say, but I've been doing my best to keep it down to a low roar, and ceasing to write about the subject every day has helped. (That and, sad to say, getting burned a bit on a handful of Agon deals in succession.) In any case, although my system has continued to evolve substantially since I last documented any changes in the forums, overall I'm glad to get back to focusing more on my music and less on my rig -- or, frankly, anyone else's. (Though I admit to recently having taken some small satisfaction in belatedly learning of the esteemed Albert's direct-drive/Technics conversion, albeit on a much higher plane!)

Anyway, now that I reread my update again a few days later, one thought I'd like to add about the new paddle: As I mentioned but downplayed, it attaches a little closer to the pivot-point and not directly to the armtube like before. However, it occurs to me that since it is now made of solid aluminum and attaches more rigidly to a piece of the same -- implying improved mechanical impedance-matching -- there should be a not-insignificant payoff of improved high-frequency conductivity in the mechanical pathway to the damping fluid.

Despite the supposed benefits listed on the KAB website (see the link in my previous post) having mostly to do with record warps and external vibrational inputs that are primarily low-frequency in nature, in my personal opinion the lessening of these effects is not the main reason for the active damper's sonic effectiveness. Based on the evidence I've heard, as indicated by the benefits listed in my review at the top, I've concluded that a dynamic fluid damper offers musical improvments regardless of whether and to what degree factors like record warps, woofer-pumping or ambient speaker volume-level come into play.

I think this is because the main vector of its action has mostly to do with the audio-band energy (including mid- and high-frequency energy) generated by the stylus itself as it transcribes the music vibration in the groove, and how that energy is handled in its transmission to the tonearm. After all, a property of the viscous silicone fluid, like any compliant damper, is that it functions as a low-pass filter, so it allows slower movement (like not impeding the tonearm from tracing the groove across the record's radius, and permitting it to follow a record warp or deal with an off-center spindle hole), while progressively damping higher-frequency movement (like overshoot and ringing resulting from attempting to track a record warp).

So the higher the frequency of the impulse input into the tonearm (e.g., audio-band excitation resulting from playing music), the more effectively it is absorbed by the fluid. But this energy (and the resonances it induces) must be transmitted to the trough before it can be damped, which is why the HF vibrational conductivity of the paddle matters, and common sense says a rigid metal paddle of matching mechanical impedance ought to be superior in this regard. I don't want to overstate the possible benefit, which as I said I am not in a position to ascertain by direct comparison, but I suspect it should more than make up for any slight relative disadvantage in theory of the new attachment point.
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