Pretty new to this forum, but I would like to comment on the concept of isolators, which judging by this forum may be a bit contrary to most folks views.
First up agree with the sentiments here that the isolator is very overpriced, but while I have not used the cartridgman isolator I have done a DIY version of my own with intersting results.
You can have a look at my DIY cart and isolator here:
http://homepage.mac.com/braddles/PhotoAlbum9.html
Now this is a little different to the cartridgmans in that the material is double sided foam tape, so its performance is likely somewhat different.
I have used this on three carts and in all three the results were the same, lower surface noise, clearer highs and smoother vocals.
I realise that the general feeling is that it would kill the dynamics and I suspect that probably is the case with the cartridgman isolator , it just looks too thick and spongy not to. But I can swear on a stack of bibles that in this case the opposite is true, and there is no loss of bass impact at all.
The reasons are that I feel the tape has no movement laterally and can only be compressed vertically, which I feel softens vertical impacts, ie surface noise, dust etc without effecting the wiggling motion of the stylus in the groove that drives the sound we want.
Another issue in my case is that the platter mat is not a mat at all but rather a hard 12 inch 78 glued to the platter, there is a tube of the bottom of the main bearing and it inserts into a sand trap. Overall this means that energy is sunk out of the record interface via the platter mat and sand trap rather than going into the arm. There are other mods on the cart, like the longhorn mod and these also work in sympathy to stabilize the cart in the lateral plane.
So overall I feel isolation can work and work really well, but it needs to be done in conjunction with a few other things, but don't spend $150.00 doing it!
Cheers Zero One
