I just googled “tubing made out of sapphire”. In the US there are at least two companies that will sell you lab grown pure Sapphire tubes of many different lengths and diameters for very low cost per tube. Who will be the first among us to make his own sapphire tonearm?
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Rsf, thank for referencing that thread on WBF. Interesting to note that Kuzma rationalizes cartridge compliance/ tonearm effective mass mismatches, IF a massy tonearm (i.e., his Safir ) is mated to a high compliance cartridge. He points out that modern high end TTs and stands provide good isolation and very low rumble, thereby rendering a low resonant frequency (the result of combining high EM with high compliance) harmless. One comment on the Safir: seems you adjust azimuth by rotating the arm tube near the pivot, as with the Triplanar. This works but also introduces yaw at the headshell because of the headshell offset angle, which may not be such a good thing.
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The question is whether boron nitride coated titanium (if that’s what Technics used) is superior to other materials for dissipating energy, not so much whether it can be bent by a human exerting strength to bend it. I doubt many arm wands of any kind except maybe steel ones could resist such an effort. Certainly aluminum, wood, and CF wands could be easily bent.
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Raul, in alluding to the fact that “some” of the respondents have conflated tonearm to cartridge matching based on the standard resonant frequency calculation with how tonearms control energy put into them by the act of playing an LP, I certainly did not mean to include you. But I do maintain those are two different phenomena. Which might explain why occasionally a tonearm to cartridge mating that seems ill advised based only on the resonant frequency math can actually sound very good, if both elements are isolated from those frequencies below the audio band that might excite the pairing. I hope I’ve made my thought more clear.
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What did I just write that’s in conflict with what you just wrote? And I know very well how you feel about the FR64S. Nothing I just wrote was in defense of the FR. Try to work on understanding my English before needlessly attacking it.
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In reading through this thread after so many months of its existence, it seems to me that most commenters are mixing together two different phenomena. The first is the resonant frequency that we calculate from tonearm effective mass and cartridge compliance. This resonance we want to lie in the range 8 to 12Hz, or very close to it. This resonance will not "happen" unless vibrational energy in the range of the resonant frequency is fed into the "system", defining the system as the tonearm/cartridge and anything attached to the tonearm or cartridge. Energy at or near that resonant frequency will excite the unwanted response. The second kind of resonance would be that which results from playing music, where a wide range of audible frequencies (but almost never in the range of 8 to 12Hz) is constantly being fed into the system due to the contact between stylus and groove where the frequencies are encoded and due also to any source of acoustic feedback in the listening room. Seems to me it is this latter source of resonance(s) that we want to control or eliminate, so the conventional matching of tonearm and cartridge based on effective mass and compliance is not so primary in this pursuit.
As a result, you could have a tonearm/cartridge that are well matched based on the equation that predicts "resonant frequency", but the combination may sound bad due to the excitation of undamped or inadequately damped resonances caused by higher audio frequencies. You could also have a tonearm/cartridge that are a bad match based on the standard equation based on tonearm effective mass and cartridge compliance but sounds wonderful (so long as it is isolated from the sub-audio frequencies that excite the inherent resonance), because the tonearm is well damped or otherwise built to avoid resonances excited at audio frequencies.
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The Ortofon MC2000 is a high compliance cartridge that would never be paired with an FR64S, at least not by me. In his original review, J Gordon Holt noted that if one were to try to keep the calculated resonant frequency of the MC2000 cartridge within an acceptable range, it needs a 5-gram tonearm, in fact, because of its high compliance coupled with its own rather heavy weight. There have only been a very few tonearms ever made that qualify purely on that criterion. Yet, humans do enjoy the MC2000, somehow.
I, for one, never said that the FR64S might be sufficiently damped by its own high effective mass. My point was that if you add the B60 and a very massive tonearm mounting apparatus made from materials that transfer energy from the tonearm base, you can achieve some degree of mass damping. I use a B60 plus about 5 lbs of tonearm mount, none of which adds to the effective mass. If you then dismiss the heavy FR headshells (20g is typical) and use a lightweight rigid headshell (less than 10g), you can expand the useful range of the tonearm. Finally, in general I have agreed over and over again that damping is beneficial.
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Makes sense. Thanks. But in that case you are using a pure tone from a test LP, not music, which is fine but does not quite mimic the real world situation. Because music will always give a very complex wave form on a 'scope, that is why I asked the question.
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Bill, What does mistracking look like on a 'scope? Wouldn't you need a positive control, a cartridge that does not mistrack the passage, to know what you are looking at? Thanks.
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Raul, I agree to stay away from this thread but of course I have one long thing left to say. You wrote,
"Your post change nothing about that cartridge/tonearm combination with a
resonance frequency at 4hz and everything surrounded this 4hz.That you like it what you listening is not under question because that is your privilege.
In
the other side, where I posted that " mass damping in tonearms is
ineffective " ? don’t put words in my mouth, those are your words not
mine . "
First, where did I say some particular tonearm and cartridge exhibit a resonant frequency of 4 Hz? I think you must be referring to my having used the FR64 with an Acutex cartridge. But I always pointed out that since the Acutex is old, we can assume its compliance is stiffer than original, and I also pointed out that I used a very light weight headshell on the FR64S when I conducted that little experiment. OEM FR headshells are VERY heavy and contribute to its high effective mass. Since I never mentioned the headshell, we would have an equation with two unknowns, compliance and effective mass. So how can you assume the Fres was 4hz? Otherwise, I truly don't know what you are talking about.
Second, I posted earlier in the thread that perhaps the large amount of mass added to the base of the FR64S by the presence of the B60 and the massive aluminum tonearm mounting board that I use with the ensemble has something to do with why my FR64S sounds outstandingly good with a variety of cartridges, despite lack of obvious external damping. I don't know this to be true, but it is a possible explanation, because the mass can dissipate energy as heat. I took your (dismissive) response as evidence you disagree with the idea of mass damping. Those words came out of your "mouth"; I did not put them there.
As to the new question about Well Tempered tonearms, I refer specifically to the WT Reference tonearm and not to any later products, such as the tonearm on the Amadeus, because I have not heard those. My very best audiophile friend owned a WT Reference turntable and tonearm for about two decades before he eventually died. In his last 2-3 years, because he was by then disabled, I was setting up his table for a new cartridge, when I noticed what I think is an excessive amount of damping, also poor control of azimuth, also a not so rigid pivot bearing. Also for those 20 years, I was hearing how it homogenizes the sounds of widely different LPs, from his collection of 6000 LPs, making them all sound "good" or pleasant, but not often like real music. (Is that better for you than "alive"? Alive means "like real live music".) I attend live music at clubs and in concert halls at least once or twice a month here in Washington, DC, where we have the Kennedy Center less than 30 minutes away from my house, driveway to driveway, and many good jazz clubs. Plus I have performed myself as a jazz singer, standing and rehearsing in front of live musicians. Plus I play the piano at home. Those are my sources of my understanding of what live music should sound like.
Have you ever publicly respected the opinion of anyone who disagrees with you, even when we are really only talking about opinion, not factual analysis? Or is everyone else on the other side of any fence you care to put up "ignorant" by definition?
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Raul, Quoting me without naming me is just as annoying to me as are your direct insults. I fully approve of properly done damping of tonearms. I think it can be way overdone, as with the Well Tempered tonearms at least the ones that pre-date the Amadeus, which I have not heard. Those older WT tonearms homogenize the music; everything sounds "pleasant". Nothing sounds alive. I judge tonearms based on their performance with a variety of cartridges, not based primarily on the presence or absence of damping. So in my world, the FR64S still can rank as a great tonearm, while I also like an admire many well damped tonearms. Can you show me actual data derived from use of the FR64S that proves it has a problem due to lack of damping? I'd appreciate that. Also, can you prove that mass damping in tonearms is ineffective? I'd appreciate that, too. And are you sure that the lubricant inside the FR tonearm bearing assembly has no effect on damping? In starting this thread, you deliberately set up a "straw man", so you can pontificate on one of your tenaciously held beliefs. We already knew where you stand.
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The thing about capacitors in speaker crossovers is that they generally operate without a bias voltage across them. Thus, (1) they may take a very long time to "break in", if you believe in that sort of thing, and (2) it is not advisable to predict their sonic qualities based on their performance inside electronic equipment, where they almost always do operate with a bias voltage across them (and therefore usually break in faster as well). It is not surprising that cost may not correlate well with performance in a speaker. Raul, where you use a capacitor at the input of your amplifier, have you tried the Russian SSG silver mylar capacitor there, assuming it is available in the needed size? (They go up only to about 0.13uF.) In my experience, the SSG is the single most transparent capacitor, even including the VCaps, which I also do like very much and which are made in a more useful range of values..
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It is very difficult to arrive at a general principle regarding tonearm damping, because in each individual instance any two different tonearms are going to be different from one another in many other ways, besides the presence or absence of damping and notwithstanding how the damping is applied, where there is any damping. So I have come to evaluate each tonearm as an entity unto itself. I own a Triplanar and wouldn't think of using it without its trough, although removing the trough from the Triplanar is a common theme on this forum going way back to Doug Deacon. I also own an FR64S which I like very very much with many different cartridges, despite its lack of formal damping. But the FR64S, at least as I use it, does employ mass damping, especially if you use it with its B60 accessory which adds a lot of mass to the base of the pivot. On top of that, I mount mine in a mass-loaded tonearm mounting board consisting of two large pieces of machined aluminum bolted together (photos upon request). Mass damping is still damping, even without some gooey substance dragging on the tonearm. At the opposite extreme, I am not familiar with the latest Well Tempered tonearms, but I did have a lot of experience with the WT Reference tonearm, which in my opinion is WAY overdamped and makes every LP sound the same, regardless of the cartridge. So, I would approach this question as regards one particular design and then ask does it sound better with or without damping. I also don't agree with Mijostyn's oversimplified idea that if the resonant frequency is between 8 and 12Hz, no damping is needed. Damping done right can broaden the resonant peak and reduce its maximum magnitude, which may be worth doing even within the magical boundaries of 8 to 12Hz. But one would have to listen first.
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