Sorry, Ct. I just took another look at that photo, and I still think that the new brushed aluminum or steel pillar that holds the tonearm closest to the viewer is NOT sitting on the shelf; to my eyes it is attached to the granite base that also supports the bearing and the platter. IOW, not Copernican. Not super optimal for the other school of thought (the linkage school), either, but in that general direction.
|
There is a long thread on this subject started by Halcro, in the context of which he refers to the idea of separating arm pod and plinth, which he favors, as "Copernican". I vigorously disagree with him; I agree with Ralph (Atma-sphere) that the two should move as one. However, I do agree with Halcro on many other subjects, and I consider him a friend. Ergo this point is no longer worth arguing about. He and anyone else can do as they please, and I will do as I please. We'll both be happy, I am sure.
I will just say one thing: Moonglum, your statement that the tonearm and plinth resonate separately even if they are locked rigidly together is kind of an oxymoron; if they resonate separately, then the goal of tying them together rigidly has not been met. And in fact, I think a lot of designs are imperfect like that. It takes a very substantial structural linkage to achieve the proper resonant unity.
I also think that if you bolt an outboard armpod to a rigid shelf and also bolt the plinth to the same shelf, you are doing the right thing. The last photo I saw of Halcro's TT101 set-up looked to me like he was doing that; it looked excellent in fact.
|
Moonglum, It's the tonearm bearing that must be firmly coupled to the turntable bearing. Yes, some tonearm bearings have more or less "play" with respect to the arm wand/headshell/cartridge, but at least there should be no wiggle room between the tonearm mount which embraces its pivot and the platter bearing. Pardon me if I misquoted you, but is there a real difference between resonating "differently" vs "separately"? Anyway, my opinions on this issue are well known; no point repeating myself. Others can think differently, and I am sure that the earth will remain in orbit regardless.
|
No thanks, Raul.
This is not to say you and Halcro are "wrong". Really, really; I don't care. I am sure that your system, and Henry's system too, are wonderful. Both of your systems differ from mine in very many ways, other than turntable/tonearm linkage, and it is not incumbent upon me to try out all the variations in order to say that I prefer what I have. Over 40 years, I've been there and done that.
The OP asked for opinions. I have stated my opinion and the theoretical why of it (and so has Atma-sphere in a more elegant treatise), and that's all I care to do on this subject. Like I also said, I fully approve of Halcro's current TT101 set-up, even though he may believe we are at odds. (Your set-up may be just fine by me, too. I haven't seen any photos, so I cannot really say.) Like you say, enjoy the music. I certainly am. |
Chakster, that Toho stuff looks very nice. Do you know anything about cost and who sells it? |
It's remarkable how durable is this controversy over separate vs linked and how vehement are the opinions, one way or the other. Pryso and Chris, for me, bolting the outboard arm pod to the plinth fits into my philosophy. Fleib, your statement: "There will be a delay as these vibrations are then transmitted from one to the other. This results in additional smearing/coloration. It could also result in greater amplitude and additional coloration.", is for me a reason why optimally the linkage must be extremely massive and rigid. Isolating the two elements does not seem to me to be a solution to the problem you cite. Most ordinary tt plinths don't cut the mustard on the criterion of linkage. Take a look at the underside and "armboard" of a Kenwood L07D, if you want to see an example of what I think is a good way to establish proper connectivity. Also, take a look at a modern Galibier turntable for another example. By the way, I have long been of the opinion that a "plinth" that minimally extends out beyond the perimeter of the platter, IOW, a circular but massive plinth a la Halcro's latest or Thuchan's new slate plinth for the TT101, or the Galibier tt's, is optimal. (There are many more commercial products built this way.) I suspect that the older traditional rectangular plinth which provides a large open flat surface out beyond the platter can induce colorations by reflecting sound produced at the stylus/LP interface back at the stylus, but it's just a guess. Thus a "pod" for the tonearm is fine with me, but it should be very positively linked to the support structure for the tt bearing, if not directly to the bearing. |
Raul, You are conflating opinion with fact. The fact that you listened to your turntable and your tonearms in a variety of set-ups, and by your own admission made no measurements but merely judged the various configurations subjectively, only adds up to.... your opinion of what sounds "best". Modern principles of science and experimentation show conclusively that unblinded testing of this sort is never free of bias. On the other hand, I may be accused of bias too, but is it not true that one wants no motion at the stylus tip, ideally, except that which is induced by groove undulations deliberately introduced during the encoding of music? (I am hoping you would agree with that premise.) Then, if so, why would one want to take a chance on movement of the tonearm pivot with respect to the turntable bearing/platter/LP surface that could be due to the differential effect of forces acting on one and not the other or both to different extents? I cannot think of a reason why that would be acceptable, if it can be avoided. That's the theory on which I base my choices. In this case, I think it is YOU who are subconsciously preferring "distortions". I am completely of the "live and let live" philosophy. Doing what you like is perfectly OK with me; just don't turn around and accuse ME of being deluded. There is no science at all in your approach. If you want to do some science, take some relevant measurements using sensitive instruments. By the way, if you are still using those Audio Technica pucks under your turntable, then even Halcro and the other Copernicans have left you behind, because they have come around to using rather massive cradles for both the turntable and the arm pod.
Enjoy the music.
|
Dear Fleib, I cannot resist commenting on your penultimate post, dated 05/05 at 8:51 PM. A suspended plinth is not a "different story"; it is the same story, except in the case of a suspended plinth vs a stationary discrete arm pod, it is plain for you and me to see WHY the discrete arm pod is not a good idea. To wit, there would be a great deal of movement of the LP surface, mediated by the suspension, that could not be followed by movement of the tonearm pivot, and this would generate spurious signals at the cartridge/LP interface. On a more micro level, this principle is operative in the relationship between any plinth, suspended or not, and any arm mounting system.
|
Flieb, Exactly what part of what I wrote, specifically, is BS? Would you use an outboard arm pod with a suspended turntable? I don't think so. You are arguing specifics (it might not work well because of this or that), and I am talking about the ideal goal. As I also said somewhere further up the thread, the engineering problem is to make the tonearm/platter behave together. I never said that was easy to do, but that should be the goal. If you mount the tonearm on a separate structure, then you have abandoned hope of achieving that goal, or at the very least, you've made it more difficult than it needs to be. Certainly, there are subpar executions of the integrated turntable/tonearm paradigm; that's one reason why turntables sound different from one another. |
Verdier photo: It looks to me like Dietrich simply replaced the OEM flimsy tonearm mount (an inverted L-shaped affair that never looked to be very stable, to me) with a nice solid pillar and then attached it directly to the granite "plinth". Nothing really radical but certainly better than stock.
Slaw, I may be wrong, but isn't the HW19 a suspended type? The OP's post contained a perfectly reasonable question that brought out all the usual suspects to comment. |
Ct, I if I misinterpreted the photo of the Verdier, mea culpa. But would it be possible to have this discussion without the heavy air of sarcasm and condescension? Most of us are trained professionals in some specialized area or other. And most of us must have been fairly successful in our field, in order to be able to afford the toys that allow for these discussions to go forward. I take it as a given that none of us is stupid, in other words. My eyesight may rightly be faulted, if I did not see the single photo of the Verdier correctly, but I am not stupid, either. You're certainly not the only one who is guilty of the insult approach to debate, so I apologize if you feel picked upon.
Now, to get back to the Verdier, I DO feel that the OEM tonearm mount on the Verdier is a weakness of the product. It does include a sturdy vertical pillar, as you say, but then the actual platform for mounting the tonearm is attached to that vertical pillar and hung out in space (see my reference to an inverted L-shape). This allows for easy adjustment of P2S distance, but it is not the greatest idea for structural rigidity. The new pillar-shaped pedestal looks better to me, no matter whether it is attached to the granite or not. |
Dear Halcro, You wrote, "The fact that you and many others can listen to vinyl played back at
excessive volumes demonstrates conclusively that air-borne sound waves
have no effects on the turntable system." But that is an incorrect assumption based on all my past experience. I have been present many times, in many different listening venues, when acoustic feedback causing distortion was sound-pressure-dependent. Backing off the volume control could reduce the effect and eventually eliminate it entirely, in these instances. Perhaps this is not a problem in your house, but it is a real phenomenon in some others. In the case that Atma-sphere (Ralph) describes, perhaps conditions were such that there was no appreciable acoustic feedback, even at 100+ db. It's possible. Careful set-up and room damping can indeed eliminate or remove the problem, but that does not mean it does not exist.
Dentdog, More to the point, is your Terminator tonearm mounted on your Salvation turntable or is it on an outboard arm pod, separate from the turntable? The Resomat is indeed a contrarian design in that it specifically decouples the LP from the platter, whereas most platter mats make an attempt at coupling to facilitate the dissipation of spurious energy delivered into the vinyl by the passage of the stylus in the groove. Many do say the Resomat works great, however. Which should make us re-examine the theory of the platter mat.
|
Dentdog, There is no need to be apologetic regarding your affection for the Resomat. You have lots of respectable company in that regard. Like I may have written elsewhere, if not here, I am curious to try one myself. In the past year, I had an epiphany in the opposite direction. Since the mat (of any kind) sits in contact with the platter, more or less in the case of the Resomat, I don't think this directly pertains to the arm pod discussion. I was long an enemy of record weights and the like devices, believing that they "killed" the dynamic extremes of music, in parallel with your experience using other platter mats. Then I acquired an original record weight and peripheral ring made by Kenwood for the L07D, just to have them, since I own an L07D. By chance I have found that the L07D record weight used in conjunction with a Boston Audio Mat1 or Mat2 or the stainless steel mat on the L07D sounds much better, even more "lively", than the mats without the record weight. I don't believe for a minute that there is any magic in the L07D record weight, by the way; the experience merely suggests that my earlier suppositions were incorrect. Probably any good weight of similar mass would work as well. It's a weird hobby.
By the way, I also think that maglev of the platter mostly acts to relieve pressure on the bearing and possibly contribute to a lower rumble figure, but I don't think it does much to isolate the platter, at least not in a major way. So, your findings there do not add or subtract from the debate about arm pods.
I do take your point about the Terminator tonearm; because they are riding on a cushion of air that would seem to isolate the arm itself from the underlying structure, the Terminator and other air bearing tonearms could be said to mimic the effect of an outboard arm pod, albeit I do believe from what you wrote that the understructure of the Terminator is directly bolted to the plinth. In which case the coupling or lack thereof would be a function of the air pressure and other aspects of the interface between the moving arm wand and its carriage. |
