@rauliruegas , 20 pounds. I need to lose 20 pounds.
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.
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.
Showing 42 responses by mijostyn
@rauliruegas I'm sure viscosity is a factor if you have that problem, another factor to drive yourself crazy about. I really like my little world. I can hide from the rest of humanity with a few selected exceptions. I hate to say this Raul, but you have to assume at this point that until human's can control their primitive instincts we are better off staying away from them. Not that there are not good people out there, there are , but their silence is deafening. |
@rauliruegas I don't have time to read 250 pages. I've got to finish my wife's vanity. Look, what's happening down there is rather simple. There is a diamond stylus tracing groove at something like 60,000 psi. while the cartridge and everything else it is attached to including Mexico must remain absolutely, perfectly, unassailably stationary other than the slow movement of the arm traveling to the end of the record. There can be no vibration of any kind other than the moving assembly of the cartridge (diamond, cantilever, coils or magnet) Now, someone must have a problem somewhere along the line as they want to apply damping. Damping is a method for controlling vibration. It serves no other purpose. Applied to a tonearm it's job is to stop the tonearm from moving or vibrating, if you will, and if there is a vibration that is not supposed to be there, the damping might diminish it some. If the cartridge is vibrating, then so isn't the tonearm. The opposite is also true or there is another vibration and you are in serious trouble. You might as well hang it all up and get a Corona. |
@rauliruegas I should be more specific and lass abrupt. There are some tonearm cartridge combinations that will benefit from damping. There is more to resonance than just the frequency at which it occurs, there is also sensitivity, amplitude and duration. I run cartridges below 8 Hz all the time. The Lyra Atlas that I am listening to right now has a resonance frequency of 5 Hz. It is also on a very well isolated turntable and a great arm. I feel the bass better this way. All tonearms have a certain degree of damping from multiple sources such the flexibility of the tonearm wires, bearing friction, air resistance and the damping designed into the cantilever's suspension. The Schroder CB adds magnetic damping. However, if I put the Atlas/CB combination on a fixed base turntable the sensitivity of the system will decrease and the result might be feedback. Heavier arms with cartridges of medium to high compliance on fixed base turntables will do better with damping because damping decreases sensitivity, amplitude and duration at low frequencies just like a car's shock absorbers. My point is if one is careful about arm, turntable and cartridge choices additional damping should not be required and indeed can cause problems. The stylus tracking the groove has been compared to dragging a rock through a trench. This is not accurate. It is dragging a rock, topped by a dump truck, through a trench. In scale that is about the right "VTF'! The pressure in PSI is insanely high. Styluses do not bounce around all over the place unless the resonance frequency is way too high or the suspension is way too stiff. This is the problem with strain gauge cartridges. Their suspension is inherently stiff and they can not handle high groove velocities. It takes an extremely high groove velociity to get a good arm cartridge combination to leave the groove on the order of 90 to 100 um at 315 Hz. |
@rauliruegas, @dogberry AB testing damping methods is easy. You make a 24/192 recording of each condition you want to compare then have a friend do the switching so you are blinded. Digital recordings at that bit rate and frequency are invisible. Pure Vinyl, a program by Channel D is an excellent vinyl recording program and once set up it is a breeze to use. Many reviewers use it.
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@rauliruegas If you have mistracking problems with the tonearms you are using you need to try different arms or maybe try increasing the VTF. You do not want to know what I think about Townsend. I assure you that I am VERY sensitive to that type of distortion and I am well experienced with it having had bad cartridge tonearm combinations in the past. Maybe you have owned to many Decca cartridges? I assure you, none of my current cartridges mistrack any record I have played, mounted in the Schroder CB as long as the stylus is pointed in the right direction. If you want to mess up your life with silicon goo mixed with dust and flies, have fun. The solution for dust is proper record management, a dust cover and control over static. If you clean your records stay away from methods that air or fan dry records. However, perfect control over dust in the typical home environment is impossible. I still use a conductive sweep arm during play and clean the turntable at least once a month. |
@rauliruegas That guy has a serious problem with record hygiene. I can't see the jitter through the dirt. I do not use the term jitter. I call it miss tracking. Do you have a problem with mistracking? I certainly do not. The last time I heard one of my cartridges mistrack it was because the stylus wound up pointed in the wrong direction. It was a warranty repair. As I stated before, if good cartridges are set up properly in the right mass tonearm, damping is not necessary and would even do more damage than good. You use damping to control resonance that can not be controlled any other way. Air bearing linear tonearms benefit from damping. The Saphir might benefit from damping. I know some audiophiles that would definitely benefit from some damping. |
@rauliruegas , It's got about 50 hours on it. The signal to noise ration is more a function of the phono stage. If I had a Seta L20 it would be dead quiet. Now with the system set above 90 dB I can just hear a hiss. With the MSL the system is dead quiet to max volume. It has probably 10 dB more gain in current mode than the MC. 1.5 ohms vs 6 ohms. Because the bass is better in current mode with everything I have used so far I think you would really like it. The damping trays might be useful in a situation were the arm is too heavy for the cartridge but it is much better to match the cartridge to the arm. I try to get as close to 8 Hz as I can. As far as bearing go they have to be ultimately smooth and as low in friction as possible. You can tell how good and arm is by setting it to neutral balance so that it floats horizontally and just blow very lightly on it and it should respond instantly and come to a very gradual halt. The abruptness at the end should be ever so slight. If you blow on the head shell from the top thearm will do one of two things. It will either gradually stop at a new position (neutral balance) or it will oscillate up and down and slowly come to a stop (stable balance) If you have not gotten them yet you should get the WallySkater and Reference. They really are great tools and make set up much easier. |
@rauliruegas , Damn you have a long memory! In that statement I was referring to added damping like silicone wells and such. Items to try and dampen the cartridge's resonance point. Nothing in a tonearm can resonate. It is why Schroder does not put a rest or finger lift on his tonearms. All the materials and shapes of each individual part have to be used and designed to be critically damped at all frequencies in the audio band including at least 2 octaves above. You know all this already. I am preaching to the choir. The MC Diamond is a fine cartridge. I wish it's impedance was lower otherwise it is top notch. The signal to noise ratio is better in voltage mode but prefer the sound better in current mode. It has more punch. The MSL is comparably polite. Just as detailed but less of an edge and not quite as punchy. |
Dover is perfectly correct. Most of the stuffs Raul just mentioned are also band aides for poor design. Which means by this definition most turntables are poorly designed requiring numerous band aides. Some turntables like Technics Direct Drive and virtually all VPI table are so bad there are not enough band aides in the world to save them:-) This is the reason many of us are drifting toward digital program sources. How are you going to put a damping trough on a DAC. |
Raul, do you think this is the only tonearm I have ever owned. My current turntable is my old stand in. I sold all my other two turntable because I will be getting a Dohmann Helix as soon as vacuum clamping is added to the design. At this moment I plan on putting two Schroder LT's on it. It does not have nor does it need a damping trough. One will have the Clearaudio Charisma in it. The other will have a Lyra Atlas Lambda SL. As for my system you can see it on my system page. I promise you won't like it. |
Yes Bill, all that makes sense. Basically damping can be useful with cartridge tonearm mismatches or if a particular combination has a very high Q. Using a Kuzma 4 Point (the 11" one) horizontal damping made no audible difference with the Lyra Kleos and Ortofon Windfeld Ti. This is three people listening. Both cartridges have a compliance in and around 14 um/mN and are well matched to this arm. It would have been nice to evaluate this with an oscilloscope but one was not available then. I have one now but my current arm and the ones I lust after do not have nor do they need damping. The Friend with the Zuzma 4 Point lives on the other side of the state so this experiment is not likely to happen in the near future. Rauliruegas, the Syrinx PU 3 was a top arm in it's day and it still has a big fan base. There are certainly arms today that are better. I'm sure you love listening to music and perhaps you have wonderful hearing. But what you hear in your own personal evaluations may be interesting but it has ZERO scientific validity. It is only your opinion which I think you have made perfectly clear in spite of the language barrier. |
Lohanimal, there are so many situations it is hard to generalize. Don't forget there is an element of damping in the cartridge itself. Some combinations have an inherently low Q. If the vibration does not occur at the resonance point then the resonance is not excited. Good tonearms break up the vertical and horizontal resonance just a little by adding a little more mass in the horizontal direction. This acts like damping in that it lowers the Q. There are many who will say that if damping improves the performance of a tonearm cartridge combination then it is either a poorly designed arm or a tonearm cartridge mismatch. If you really want to see what is going on you have to hook an oscilloscope up to the phono stage. Then it becomes rather obvious. |
"In all circumstances the 3 tonearms using different arm wands performs really good and the cartridges trcks " splendid " but when in any one of them I use the silicon damping the whole performance change for the better. It's not nigth and day but the changes are easy detected especially at both frequency ranges." Rauliruegas, How did the performance "change for the better." By listening? By observation with an oscilloscope? By what measure? |
As to what sounds best? That is a personal issue that only you can figure out. What everybody else says is irrelevant. So it is like wine. You develop your own taste and perhaps occasionally get adventurous and try something different. Sometimes you agree with other sometimes not. I do find it interesting that everyone will agree when a wine is really bad. |
Right. Ralph I think he means "abilities" but whatever. There are facets of this issue I think we can all agree on. The best tonearms follow a record's undulations without disturbing the function of the cartridge. There are cartridges that are better trackers but a bad tonearm will interfere with that capability. A tonearm's effective mass including that of the cartridge and screws has to be matched to the compliance of the cartridge resulting in a resonance frequency between 8 and 12 Hz. Fluid damping of the tonearm can be useful if the Q of the resonance frequency is high or if the resonance frequency is out of band. So, what does all this add up to? Everyone has to make up their own mind but, I think it is pretty obvious that you can not just jamb any cartridge into an arm and expect it to work well. My own interpretation of this is; you want a tonearm cartridge combination with a low moment of inertia as it will follow the undulations of the record surface better. Added to this should be a camping system that flattens the record such as reflex or vacuum clamping. In keeping with low inertia you want a tonearm with a low effective mass. I personally would not do anything over 18. You want a cartridge that tracks well that has a compliance that matches the effective mass of the arm. I personally will not look anything under 80um. Finally if a tonearm has an available damping trough that is an added benefit (it has to be both horizontal and vertical) I would not use it unless it was absolutely necessary. |
bukanona, in regards to the tonearms major resonance frequency effective mass is 1/2 the equation. We must be talking about different subjects. I think you are talking about minor resonances that might occur in the arm tube or balance weight. Proper choice of materials and construction can certainly minimize these and produce a better sounding tonearm , but this has nothing to do with the major resonance as dictated by the cartridges suspension and the effective mass of the system. |
Frankly, I am not interested in antique tonearms even if they are superbly made. All my favorite arms, the ones I would buy if I had the money, do not have damping troughs and these are totally unnecessary if paired with the right cartridge. Thes arm also happen to be on the light side with low moments of inertia. Larger arms like the 4 Point 14 could definitely use damping if paired with a high compliance cartridge and the 4 Points have both horizontal and vertical damping. They have fallen of my personal list. To bad Frank Schroder isn't here. I would love to ask him what he thinks of tonearm damping. Rauliruegas, is Frank Schroder OK? At least he is not Japanese. |
Absolutely right fsellet. They can't hear because their eyes are slanted. I wonder if this is true of the South Koreans and Chinese. We use to think it was because of the music they listened to which sounds like a hand full of silverware thrown into the air but rauliruegas has straightened us out. It turns out that the Japanese and South Koreans love American Jazz and the ones I know are good listeners. They do make some of the best cartridges. Is that by accident? |
Thanx for the credit rauliruegas. The second article explains why lighter arms with resonance frequencies above 8 Hz have improved performance due to lower VTF variations consequently less FM distortion. It specifically mentions low effective mass as the most significant performance parameter and shows very convincing evidence of this in experimental form. It uses this as the most plausible explanation for improved sound with low effective mass straight line trackers. This also explains the poor performance of air bearing and roller bearing types of straight line trackers that have very high horizontal effective mass. The Kuzma airline in particular got iffy reviews. It mentions damping as an afterthought. Thus it asserts that higher compliance cartridges with lower mass tonearms out perform high mass low compliance setups as long as the resonance frequency is kept above 8 Hz. This also explains why turntables with vacuum clamping out perform turntables that do not have vacuum clamping. It would be interesting to perform the same experiment using both reflex and vacuum clamping to see if there is a significant difference. Putting this together it would seem you want a turntable with clamping that will eliminate warps, a lighter tonearm with a more compliant cartridge. This study was done in the 1980s! Maybe moving away from arms like the Infinity Black Widow and cartridges like the Shure V15 was a bad idea. Big arms with stiff cartridges might not be bad as long as the record is kept as flat as possible. The first article is hard to qualify because the reproduction of the grafts and the explanation of what is going on is rather poor at least for a simpleton like me. |
antinn, thanx for the articles. Article #2 is really great and I think important for any turntable jockey to read. It demonstrates the effects of varying tonearm effective mass brilliantly. It argues that if radial trackers sound better it is only because they are lighter (they are talking about servo driven units.) It also makes a sound argument as to why a shorter arm is better than a longer one. And why a pivoted arm should sound better than a radial tracker with a very high horizontal mass. The graphs of this are very provocative. |
My spelling and grammar are the result of a bad education. When this was being taught I was thinking about flying rockets through the neighbor's windows and being a WW2 fighter ace. Spelling and grammar held no interest to me and my teachers were incapable of making it so. Nobody (except the neighbors) realized I had a brain until I waltzed away from my peers in math. Today they would label me as having a progressive developmental disorder. |
Right nandric, I am not as graceful with the english language as thee but lets see if I can give it a go. Every theory starts with an assumption (two s's.) If I do "X", I will get a certain result "Y". In order to move that theory to scientific fact you have to do an experiment with "repeatable" results that show X indeed leads to Y. Galileo did this. Aristotle belongs in a different subject. Asserting ideas you can not prove to influence others is the reason we have so much mythology in this hobby. "That sounds like it will work" is much different than "This works." It seems the two are always confused. I see no consistent data that proves tonearm damping improves tracking in all circumstances which is what is being assumed and asserted. Certainly in the case of a very compliant cartridge in a heavy arm it might. Otherwise there is no good explanation that it should and no proof that it does otherwise some very brilliant tonearm designers would add it to their best arms. SAT, Reed and Schroder are some examples and there are many more. Reed and Schroder give you instead the option to change the effective mass of the arm, a better approach IMHO. Raul makes assertions based on what he hears. Unfortunately, and we should all know this, hearing is not a repeatable experiment. |
Nandric, assumptions are the mother of all F--k Ups Raul, there is one variable in your assessment that has to give us all pause and that is what you "heard." Forgetting about psychoacoustics, How do we know what condition your hearing is in. Maybe you are an old person who is already rolling off at 8 kHz, presbycusis. Most old people do not even notice this! Maybe you are on Lithium and have had your cochlea destroyed along with your kidneys and thyroid gland. You could even be myxedematous! Consequently, if your argument is based on "what you heard." It becomes almost (but not quite) totally invalid. Next time you do the damping experiment have a panel of friends present and get group consent. This is improve the validity of the argument a little but do keep them off the peyote:) By the way, this is true for ALL of us. |
I think Raul raised an interesting issue with airborne vibration. Even if a turntable and arm are isolated mechanically from whatever they are sitting on sound waves in air will tend to vibrate them exciting whatever resonances remain. There are many tonearms now with superbly damped arm wands. I think the best have permanent head shells with the exception of Kuzma. The main resonance that remains is the one that should be around 10 Hz. There is not much in music down there and a properly suspended turntable should be isolated down to 2-3 Hz. Anything above that will not get to the cartridge and arm by mechanical means. A well damped tonearm should not pass on any vibration in the audio band. So, in this situation a damping paddle in silicone can only affect the one resonance point. In the ideal situation there is nothing else to damp. It would seem to me then that if using a voluntary damping mechanism makes an improvement in the sound then either the turntable and/or tonearm are not correctly isolated or internally damped and there are now other resonance points in play. In which case isolating the turntable and tonearm from airborne sound waves might also make an improvement. But, if there is only the one resonance point, 10 Hz where not much happens nothing will improve the performance of the system other than perhaps changing the cartridge. A fixed turntable also has to contend with vibration passed on mechanically. A good example of this is the foot fall problem. Just because a turntable is on a granite slab does not protect it from all mechanical vibration and does nothing for airborne sound waves. I had some correspondence with Mark Doehmann creator of the Helix turntable. He is working on a dust cover system for the Helix that will isolate it from airborne sound waves. It is the final frontier for him. Right now it is so heavy he will be using gas shocks to lift and counter balance it. |
@antinn I reviewed that article. It is unfortunately defective on a number of fronts. They are choosing the data that substantiate their claim instead of the other way around. A good example of this is Fig 23. They show three different situations. A tonearm set up with a resonance freq of 7 Hz, 9.5 Hz and 16 Hz, all using the same cartridge. Only the 16 Hz set up is "damped" (they do not say how). They play a 3 kHz tone through all three and show the trace. From this they are asserting that damping the arm is a good thing to do. 1st of all the 9.5 Hz has the best trace down to - 20 dB. What happens when you play a 20 Hz note? Why did they not show each set up with and without damping? This figure says absolutely nothing! |
As for mats I thought it was pretty well established that you want a material that has the same mechanical impedance as vinyl which is pretty hard. As for hold down vacuum is handily the best as it will perfectly flatten all records except the severely warped ones which should be thrown out any way. But what about those record flatteners? Really silly idea. When you warp a record you stretch the surface. Warps are caused by uneven heating of the record. The hot areas expand into the direction of least resistance forming the warp. If you reheat the record and compress the warp does the vinyl compress so that the molecules wind up in exactly the same place they started in? Highly unlikely. The surface remains distorted. |
1++ @cleeds Cartridges come critically damped. That is what their suspensions are all about, but they are damped to work in certain types of arms as characterized by mass. If you go outside the mass they are "critically damped" for you will get into trouble. For on arm that is too light you simply at weight (mass.) For an arm that is too heavy, you can take a hack saw to it or you can try and damped it further by various methods to spread out and flatten the resonance peak so that it might not interfere with playback. My own rule of thumb is to discount variables which are highly subjective. Hearing is one of them. Hearing is personal. You can only apply your own. Record playback is just a matter of very simple newtonian physics. Ok, maybe DS Audio enters the quantum realm. |
Sota and Basis make the best pads IMHO but I have not listened to a lot of them. I think the clamping method is more important. In most cases reflex clamping will work with all but the most severely warped records and I do not have an of those. Vacuum is the best but admittedly more complicated and expensive. Dohmann is going to release his vacuum clamping system soon and he has told me that once the record is clamped the compressor turns off! God knows how he is pulling that trick off. Obviously his mat has to seal the record without any leaks. Sota used a low vacuum system with the compressor running at a very low speed. I'm not sure what Basis or Techdas do in this regard. |
Atmasphere, 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 is the additional damping required to control a pronounced resonance peak you might see with certain arm cartridge combinations the worst being a very compliant cartridge in a heavy arm. Schroder uses wood arm wands because of their extremely damp nature. Kuzma machines aluminum conically to spread the resonance out of existence. SME does the same but in magnesium another relatively dead metal but lighter. Triplanar uses a composite tube with "coaxial damping" whatever that is. It also has a trough but I have never seen it in use and I suspect it would only be useful if you stuck something on it like a Shure V15. I have no idea why you would do that but hey, people do silly things. |
lewm, yes, damping will broaden and lower the resonance peak which is why you want to use it in the situation where a tonearm is too heavy for the cartridge. BUT, if the tonearm is properly tuned to between 8 and 12 Hz you don't need it at all. Why? SIMPLE, nothing happens there. Warp frequencies are below. Rumble and record noise are above. There is nothing there to excite it. Don't forget that the suspension of cartridges has a certain amount of damping built in. They don't just keep bouncing around. The only time I have ever seen damping in a very useful application was with an air bearing straight line tracker. It definitely decreased the amount of lateral cantilever movement during play. Because these arms have a very high horizontal mass the horizontal resonance frequency can be very low resulting in horizontal cantilever wobble which you can easily see. There is no question that damping quieted this down but, I would still never buy the arm. Don't like crutches. |
Raul, damping is a crutch for situations where you have a cartridge that is too compliant for the arm or an arm that is too heavy for the cartridge. With proper tonearm matching damping is not needed and indeed is a negative. It is like adding friction to your bearing and forces the cartridge to work harder pulling the tonearm back and forth particularly on an eccentric record. Vertical damping might cause difficulty negotiating warps. Don't use crutches. Fix the problem. |