Tonearm microphonics

In his original review of the Well Tempered arm, and in Bill Firebaugh’s literature on his arm, Gordon Holt discussed the viscosity of the arm’s "bearing" well damping fluid, and how it allows the arm to freely move at very low frequencies (those of the arm following the groove, warps, etc.), but keeps the arm’s bearing rigid above those frequencies, such that it allows it to act as a normal mechanical bearing, but with very low friction, and no bearing rattling or chatter

The Townshend Rock turntables damping trough behaves in the same manner; warps are "slow" enough to not impede the movement of the arm in response to them (up and down), and the same with groove eccentricity (left and right). Those frequencies are very low, far below the lowest contained in recordings. At audio frequencies, the viscosity of the damping fluid in the trough is heavy enough to "lock" the front of the arm in place, just as an arm’s bearings do at the arm’s rear. The result is the tightest, cleanest bass I’ve ever heard from LP’s. LP surface noise is diminished as well, and violins take on a smooth sheen, their timbre sounding organic, not electronic, bright, or etched. The resonance-reducing capability of the Rock system also increases the audibility of inner detail (listen to one of the great recordings of the large choral groups Robert Fulton made---every voice is individually audible, or the massed string section of a symphony orchestra) , and micro-dynamics. With the low-level "haze" (that created by uncontrolled resonances in the playback machine) removed from the sound of LP’s, the sound IS more like that from master tapes, the mechanical nature of LP reproduction reduced. Does this sound like a commercial ;-) ?

One interesting thing discovered with The Rock is that it decreases the difference in the sound of arms mounted on it, the damping apparently compensating for the less well-damped nature of cheaper arms.

When the Townshend Audio Rock table was introduced in the 80's (I believe it was), which connects the headshell of the tonearm mounted on it to a trough containing silicone damping fluid, some of the British reviewers liked it's "master tape" sound, while others (particularly those in the Linn Sondek camp) found it's sound to be "overdamped", too "controlled".

Can an arm be "too" damped, too non-resonant? Are those two things the same? I don't want my arm to add any resonance to the sound the mechanical-to-electrical transducer (cartridge) produces, any more than I want the enclosure of a loudspeaker to add any resonance to the electrical-to-mechanical transductance the speaker performs. Is that a fair and accurate equivalency?

The lower the compliance of the cartridge stylus’ suspension, the more the energy from that cartridge is transmitted into the arm. The stiffer and more damped the arm tube, the more it resists resonating from the energy being pumped into it. Also, the stiffer the tube, the higher in Hz is it’s own resonant frequency, and the more damped it is, the lower the Q of that resonance---a broader, more shallow resonant profile. The energy fed into the arm tube migrates to the back end, where it is transmitted into the arm’s bearing(s). The better the bearing(s), the less they rattle or create chatter---noise, which decreases transparency and resolution.

The arm’s designer has to balance all the competing demands, making compromises to achieve over-all best performance and sound. Applying after-market damping to an arm may upset that balance, actually decreasing the sound quality the arm can provide.

The best way to damp a tonearm/cartridge is at the headshell, as is done in the unique Townshend Audio Rock turntable.