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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.






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Showing 2 responses by nandric

nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 
Éssential- versus conditional approach. The first mentioned is based
on Aristoteles who discriminted between ''essential'' and ''accidental''
properties of objects. It is similar to induction by which one ''deduce''
from one quality to all others. The other approach is by Tarski :
''truth by satisfaction of predictes'':  ''x satisfy conditions a,b, c..,n''
and if not the the statement is not true.
As Raul think that damping is essential property of tonearms so
does chakster about styli. 
The so called ''holistic'' approach is ''obviously'' conditional. Like,say,
 Lew and Dover.


nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 
mijostyn , what you call ''asumptions'' is the same as ''assertions''.
We all think in the same way: we start with some assertion as
premise which we think is true and deduce from this assertion
our conclusions. But first logical rule is: ''if the assertions (premise)
is no true than the deductions alo can't be true''. 
For a long time there was no difference between ''auctoritas'' and
''veritas''. That is why Aristoteles dominated western education
for 2000 years. Till Galileo proved his ''physics'' wrong and Frege
his logic and methodology.  So the mentioned  confusion is the
result of bad education. 
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