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TONEARM DAMPING : DAMPED OR NOT ? ? USELESS ? ? WELCOMED ? ?

Dear friends: This tonearm critical subject sometimes can be controversial for say the least. Some audiophiles swear for non damped tonearms as the FR designs or SAEC or even the SME 3012 that is not very well damped in stock original status.

Some other audiophiles likes good damped tonearms.


In other thread a gentleman posted:


"  If a cartridge is properly matched to the tonearm damping is not required. " and even explained all what we know about the ideal resonance frequency range between tonearm and cartridge ( 8hz to 12hz. ). He refered to this when said: " properly matched to the tonearm ".


In that same thread that a Triplanar tonearm owner posted:


" This is the one thing about the Triplanar that I don't like. I never use the damping trough...... I imagine someone might have a use for it; I removed the troughs on my Triplanars; its nice to imagine that it sounds better for doing so. "


At the other side here it's a very well damped tonearm:


https://audiotraveler.wordpress.com/tag/townshend/


Now, after the LP is in the spining TT platter ( everything the same, including well matched cartridge/tonearm.  ) the must critical issue is what happens once the cartridge stylus tip hits/track the LP grooves modulations.

The ideal is that those groove modulations can pass to the cartridge motor with out any additional kind of developed resonances/vibrations and that the transducer makes its job mantaining the delicated and sensible signal integrity that comes in those recorded groove modulations.

 That is the ideal and could be utopic because all over the process/trip of the cartridge signal between the stylus tip ride and the output at the tonearm cable the signal suffers degradation (  resonances/vibrations/feedback ) mainly developed through all that " long trip " .


So, DAMPING IS NEED IT AT THE TONEARM/HEADSHELL SIDE OR NOT?


I'm trying to find out the " true " about and not looking if what we like it or not like it is rigth or not but what should be about and why of that " should be ".


I invite all of you analog lovers audiophiles to share your points of view in this critical analog audio subject. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT?


Thank's in advance.



Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.






Ag insider logo xs@2xrauliruegas

Showing 14 responses by atmasphere

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,615 posts
 
Merely being able to play an LP side without skipping or obvious distortion is not itself proof of good tracking.
An oscilloscope has been indispensable in our mastering operation. Test equipment can be quite handy for moving from anecdote to more fact-based findings :)
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,615 posts
 
Sound identical: obviously that's a bad joke coming from a rookie.
Is it still a good joke if you're not? Raul, I cut my own LPs; as you know I have the LP mastering system as well as a variety of tape machines. You can try to write that stuff off if you want but its disingenuous. 
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,615 posts
 
You are whom posted what I stated in the OP:

""" " This is the one thing about the Triplanar that I don't like. I never use the damping trough...... I imagine someone might have a use for it; I removed the troughs on my Triplanars; its nice to imagine that it sounds better for doing so. "

Other audiophiles with out knowing that was you whom posted in this thread posted something like: "t that person with the Triplanar does not knows what is losting down there "

You are worst than mijostyn because he has not the opportunity to test in his tonearm the silicon trough. You had it and still have and you NEVER used ! ! ! ? ? ? Go figure and you follow posting in the main thread subjects.

With all respect and in this cartridge/tonearm issue you are almost a rookie and you need to learn a lot before you can try through your posts to help us. Unfortunatelly at this moment you can't do it no matter what and you don't need to answer this post.
Ugh. What an odious post.

I did recognize my own words.

I've not used the damping troughs for a simple reason: I have the master tapes of LPs I've recorded, and the simple fact is that without the troughs I get the LP and tape machines to sound identical.



atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,615 posts
 
@rauliruegas I quoted the two statements that were in contradiction to each other. I don't need to do it again. I asked about them to see if that is what you meant to say. From your rather acerbic response, apparently you did. In a court of law, any competent attorney would pounce on something like that, asking 'so were you lying then or are you lying now?'; contradictions don't go down well. That is why I asked. I really do think language is a great deal of the problem here. But in case its not, the simple fact is the cartridge can't do what its designed to do unless the tonearm does its job correctly. Its that simple. So no point in saying the cartridge can do this independently of the arm, which is what your post was saying, whether you meant it that way is a different story. 
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,615 posts
 
I think he means "abilities" but whatever.
Yes- either way the meaning is not significantly changed.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,615 posts
 
First is not the tonearm whom makes the tracking but the cartridge tracking habilities.

Now, everything the same the superior rtonearm is that one that permits that the cartridges tracks " everything " and I agree it should do it controlling resonance but this last sentence comes almost implicit in that tonearm because with out rigth resonance control the cartridge can't tracks in adequated way.

@rauliruegas  These two statements are in contradiction of each other and one occurs right after the other. Was this your intention? Obviously they can't both be true, assuming that by 'habilities' you meant 'capabilities'.

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,615 posts
 
I had a Rabco in which I replaced the arm with carbon fiber and set up the cat whiskers to drive an opamp, complete with a bit of capacitive smoothing so the opamp could match the speed of the grooves. It worked well except that the track on which the arm moved was resonant and sloppy. Reducing the mass of the arm was a big deal though. I think that Audio magazine article really does itself an injustice by referring to ’pivoted’ as opposed to ’radial’ arms- in that regard it makes almost no sense unless you know that they mean ’linear tracking’ when the word ’pivoted’ appears....
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,615 posts
 
Unfortunatelly audio analog is not really a science and do not exist inviolable rules.
I don't find this to be true, nor do I worry about being a minority in this regard. There's a lot of 'by gosh and by golly' in this hobby.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,615 posts
 
@rauliruegas 3M and a few others make a butyl rubber tape that sticks to itself when you stretch it. I've not compared it to the Sumiko Analog Survival kit but it does work and does not leave a sticky mess when removed.


The Triplanar has an internal damping mechanism in its arm tube and so works well lacking any external tape for damping. In this regard it works better then the SME5 with damping while at the same time having lower mass.


BTW I think you mean 'riding' when you are using 'ridding'. Riding is used like 'riding your bicycle', 'ridding' is used like 'getting rid of garbage'.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,615 posts
 
I found that adding the Sumiko Analog Survival kit meant that I had to use cartridges with a bit lower compliance. IOW while solving one problem another is created, like many things in life. A better solution is to start with a properly damped arm tube.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,615 posts
 
The 'amp's resistor' does not make a lot of sense in this conversation. However the 'cartridge loading resistor' does and that is what I meant. If it is in place prior to the application of mechanical damping, it may well be found that the damping of the resistor was compensating for the distortion (which will cause brightness) present when the arm, vinyl or turntable was not damped.


So the result would be that by doing the mechanical damping it might sound dead and lifeless. I've found that if your electrical/electronic ducks are in a row, its impossible to overdamp a platter, overdamp an LP with a platter pad (although a platter pad causes changes in tonality all on its own) or by properly damping an arm tube (which admittedly is a bit of a trick,  as this directly affects the effective mass of the arm/cartridge combination).



atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,615 posts
 
What I learned there and thank's to my self developed test evaluation process was that I not even losted SPL but what I losted and that was the " culprit " of that LIFELESS were the distortion levels that gone way lower and from the " life " came: false life because was for the higher distortion levels.
I've maintained for years that a sign of a good system is that its a lot harder to tell how loud its actually playing. The lower the distortion the more this is the case.


If you are working with any mechanical damping I would be careful to remove any electrical damping (such as the loading resistor) which might be acting as a crude 'tone control' that might color your impressions.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,615 posts
 
I thought we were talking about oil or silicone based damping systems with troughs, paddles and goo. Obviously arm tubes can't ring which is why aluminum is frequently used. Stuff makes a worthless bell.
It appears that we're talking about all these things. Aluminum doesn't make a good bell, but its incorrect to assume that it won't have a resonance. I know a musician that uses aluminum bits he finds as percussion instruments.


BTW the first/only commercial use of Warren's platter pad was in fact on the Sota Cosmos. He told me that after about the first 100 or so they stopped using his formula. I ran serial number 0 of the Cosmos (it was white) for several years before replacing it with one of our model 208s. So when I compared the two machines side by side the platter pad wasn't a variable.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,615 posts
 
many years ago Sumiko marketed the Analog Survival Kit that is a great analog accesory.
A friend of mine, Warren Gehl (currently at ARC) was the designer of this product. I had pre-production and production sample that I used on my SME5, which really did seem to benefit from it, although it raised the mass of the arm which limited the number of cartridges I could use.

Eventually I moved to the Triplanar, which has a damped arm tube and so I didn't need the Analog Survival Kit any longer. IMO, if you really want the most out of an LP, the arm tube should be damped in some manner.


Warren also designed the platter pad I use. It is very effective in damping vibration in the LP, so it can't talk back to the stylus as its tracking the groove. Warren only made a few of these mats (less than 50) and the last one I saw sold used went for about $1200.00. IMO/IME the platter pad is an unsung but very important part of the LP playback alchemy.
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