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

@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.

https://www.sereneaudio.com/blog/what-does-jitter-sound-like

Dear @mijostyn  : With all respect to you what in " hell " you did not undersand from my last post that are not my words but the gentlemans/researcher Crandfield Institute where them belongs to the Departament of Design of Machine systems.

Townshend was not one of those researchers he was the investment gentleman that decided to run out with what those gentlemans discover and proved.

I said all that because you insist: " there are tonearm cartridge combinations that will benefit from damping.........there is more to resonance that just frequency....there is also sensitivity, amplitud and duration ."

Btw, in those white papers all those about amplitude and the like comes with not wide explanation but measurements about.

Anyway , my main issue is not about the tonearm/cartridge resonance but the characteristics that surround the cartrdge riding the groover. This is what is happening down there and what is eveloping by the cartridge it self ( forgeret about the tonearm even if is a " perfect " tonearm and good mated to the cartridge. ).

Please think in the cartridge ridding grooves in isolation that it's something that those researchers concluded along other conclusions:

I have several years posting about that analog jitter/mistracking way before I started this thread or that P.Lenderman video and way before I knew about the white papers I mentioned here.

Those white papers are around 250 pages, it’s truly bigger to read it but yesterday for the first time I read there:

" this is atributed to cartridge vibration at high frequency upseting the subtle phase effects...."

" The name clamp or stabilizer seems more appropiate than damper, as the device only damps over a very narrow frequency range: 8hz-15hz but clamps from 20hz to 50khz. It is the clamping which gives the improvements:

a) bass coloration reduced

b) mid band "openess" improves

c)distortions at all frequencies is reduced

d)stereo imagery improved

e) tracking problems " eliminated " and

f) feedback greatly reduced. "

Clamp down there is the name of the game and the silicon is what it does " clamps " the cartridge to the groove surface in a % that in many ways stop that the cartridge ridding follows developing higher distortions. NO it does not really clamps it's only a little help that even a deaf audiophile can listen if it's using the rigth silicon viscosity and the good news in this clamp is that we achieve only benefits and nothing " wrong " that you can detect and only testing you can attest about in positive or negative way. I repeat: you have to test it with several cartridges in your system.

I already posted that I builded trays for the silicon dedicated in specific to around 8 different arms where I tested the same cartridges using the same LP tracks and with different silicon viscocities.

I know what I'm talking about and you DON'T only theory and good imagination/desires and the like. You need facts or to make your own measures with and with out the silicon tray in you tonearm ( I know that you think that your tonearm does not needs that damping but it's not for the tonearm but for the cartridge ridding. )

R.

@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.

@mijostyn : You need to go out for a few minutes from your little world.

Btw, the key in this cartridge main issue is the choice and quantity of silicon viscosity level we are using it.

R.

@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. 

Dear @mijostyn  : My audio world is truly small and inside it I have estrict and specific critical issues and targets to make the MUSIC really an enjoyment the near I can to the live event MUSIC experience. I'm not complicated.

Things are that for me what we can't avoid and always is there is all what I posted in mt last 6-7 post that is happening at the stylus/cantilever ridding and been here where the MUSIC source starts we all should be to care about to try achieve that real MUSIC enjoyment  with the any kind of developed distortions at minimum. This is my target here and now. Which yours?.

R.

@rauliruegas , 20 pounds. I need to lose 20 pounds. 

Methods produced for Oil Damping on a Tonearm is nothing new to myself as something to be experienced.

It has been experienced as a Arc Trough and DIY Produced Oversized Trough with both a Vertical and Horizontal orientated Paddle produced to assess the impact a Paddle resistance can have.

It has been witnessed as a A/B comparison with a Identical Tonearm Cart’ with different Viscosities of Oil available for the Trough, in both Spirit Mineral Oil and Silicone Oil, as well as a Blend of these Oil Types.

This was done at a time when a alternative metal was under investigation for a Arm Tube, and not necessarily a homogenous metal.

I have no recollection of anything very attractive and indelible being perceived as having occurred, as a result of experiencing a trough in use. I do recall a few Oil Types were used.

I only had one follow up discussion on this methodology, which to me indicates not too much had a occurred to want to learn more about.

The follow up conversation made it known the trough was inspected under very high magnification and there was no evidence able to be detected on the oil surface, that a energy was being transferred though the paddle to the trough oil fill.

The discussions had that usually put an emphasis on where improvement was really to be found, was when the discussions centred around modifications undertaken within the bearing housing, for how they were an influence on what was easily recognised for being an impressive betterment than a earlier version.

The idea of a non homogenous Tonearm Metal produced from a Binderless 3D Printing to produce a Form with a particular spacing between between bonded particle is seemingly the real advancement to be discovered.

Technology today and the software that can control jet nozzles, places the Magnesium Powder as the material that has been most discussed with the Tonearm Designer, the metal that has much appeal for how it can control energy transfer as a non homogenous material, with Titanium Powder not too far behind.

I am visiting the designer builder of the Tonearm this weekend and will once more attempt to get them to take a proper look at Mycelium as a 3D Printed form for a Arm Tube.

This is as cutting edge technology as I believe I may venture into, in my later years involved with a interest in Audio and what the equipment can produce. 

Even though I say it is cutting edge Technology, 3D Printing as a concept able to produce a form is as old as CD.

Powdered Metal and other Particulate being used to produce a non homogenous form, with approx' 25% air space by Volume, is much older as a concept and working design, probably 100 years.

As a Layman description, I am not the man behind the Science.

These Forms used as a Binderless construction for a Wand will make transferral of energy that little more broken as the air spaces are now a place for dissipation of the transfer, resulting in diminished energy overall within the structure.    

The late Hans Henrik ( Moerch) once told me the DP6 I have would sound better if I could avoid the optional damping fluid.

Dear @audiomark1234  : Things are that for several years I owned the first the 4 and latter on the DP-6 that's almost an unipivot design ( has 2 bearing points. ) and with not good microscopic stability for the stylus tip ridding.

That's why came or comes with silicon oil damping for the horizontal plane and independent for the vertical movements and in this we can choose the " quantity " of damping we need or not but this fact depends more that what the designer says but  the cartridges we own and our sound reproduction preferences.

With out vertical damping we coulkd think is more open/cryztaline the sound but that could be the added non damped distortion levels.

R.

'could be' ?, 'might be' ?

" You need facts or to make your own measures "

Following a very enjoyable day visiting the Designer of the Tonearm referred to in the earlier Post and once more discussing the subject of a Trough > Paddle > Damping Fluid. 

There is no change in the thought about damping troughs being used.

The Wow and Flutter that can be detected during a LP's replay is to be witnessed as a substantial improvement through improving Speed Control, as a result of optimising certain mechanical interfaces both mechanical and geometrical.

Optimisation is achievable through removing a common cause of eccentric rotation, being the non-true rotation of the axis of the Platter Bearings Spindle.

Keeping on top of a LP's eccentricity is more difficult as the cause is typically the off set of the Groove to the LP's Hole / Spindle Centre, not the usually misunderstood dimension incorrectly suspected as being the LP's Hole / Spindle Centre to the LP's perimeter. If the hole centre perimeter dimension was the only concern there would be tools available to substantially improve on the condition.

Optimisation can be taken further when addressing the interface created between the Styli and Groove, which is the next to be considered.

There are set up Geometries where the selection of the null points are capable of producing differing forces which will be exerted within the Groove, at certain positions during the replay, these are a cause of friction and drag, each capable of impacting on Wow and Flutter.

There are things that can be addressed within the Cartridge, especially the accuracy of the alignment of the Styli on the Cantilever, the alignment of the Cantilever to the Coils and the Azimuth when the Styli is within the Groove.  

The cleanliness of the Vinyl and Quality of the finished polish to the Styli will also assist with overcoming the presence of Wow and Flutter

When the mechanical and geometrical interface is addressed, the use of a dedicated Speed Controller will assist with a improved control over the electronics influence on the speed. 

These critical conditions when not optimised, are able to influence detrimentally on a replay. Their presence when non-optimised are not going to be resolved by the use of a Paddle in oil, and it is most unlikely the use of a Paddle and Oil, be it a Silicone, Spirit Mineral or a Blend of either, is going to be an adequate method for removing the 'entirety' of the impact of energies being created as a result of the presence of any of the above conditions not being optimal.

Even if the conditions are at their optimal, the Trough, Oil, Paddle is not going to offer much as a means to remove what remains as a unwanted energy transfer. 

Energies being generated, resulting with a proportion of unwanted produced energy, able to be transferred through a Tonearm, will have an amount of produced energy, able to be a bounce back energy, even with a Trough in place, where the result will be unwanted energy being able to return to source, ultimately to encounter and be an influence on the the Styli. 

@lewm  : 55 554390 0518, please say me Hi down there. Could you?  Appreciated.

R.

Re the original question. Simple correct answer. Tonearm should not vibrate or flex. If it's not "perfect" - damping is appropriate. Of course there are many 'cabalistic' factors  :)  (Made you go for the dictionary :)  Naturally this thread 'could' go on forever :)  We've got endless 'retired' guys, plus bored sales 'people' or should that be 'persons?' with nothing better to do--  gotta love this 'forum' ...........

@rauliruegas great arms + headshells + carts don’t need damping! “rattling” arms, not maintained, lose/damaged bearings etc, can be band-aided by adding damping. it’s similar to speakers, not resonating by design cabinets need less damping than resonating ones. sound produced by less dampened perfect systems will be more accurate, tighter bass, much nicer piano tone reproduction! 

Dear @westcoastaudiophile : "  great arms + headshells + carts don’t need damping!  "

I agree with you if that happens in an LP analog perfect universe, unfortunatelly that statement is way elusivein the real world where some where we all we need to take care of damping down there.

But that's a personal choice due that that choice depends ( at least ) on two factors: what's  great for we and which one is our system MUSIC reproduction main target.  Our choice is a compromise down there according those factors I mentioned.

Almost nothing is wrong in our choice because it's way PERSONAL.

R.