Tonearm resonance


Always have had an issue with tonearm noise. I can't afford the the to spend a fortune on a turtable but I just love the sound of vinyl. I have an MMF 7.3 with the stock tonearm and ortofon bronze cartridge which I'm planning to upgrade to a Hana EL most likely. Anyway, I just saw Funk Firm decouplers online the other day and am curious as to whether it is effective or not. If anyone has had experience with it I would love to hear about it. Thanks

johnnybwood

noromance, good solution

Origin Cartridge Enabler

they mention other solutions

"

Cartridge isolation works

 

The idea of decoupling the cartridge from the tonearm is not entirely new. The Cartridge Man isolator does this successfully for many arms.

Another alternative promoted by Dynavector importer Pear Audio suggested 3 plastic washers placed between a cartridge body and headshell - this also worked effectively."

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Cartridge Man

the text/his test results are worth reading if considering this

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back to Origin:

The key advantages of the Cartridge floater are:

It sounds brilliant

It’s easy to fit

Low cost at £19 (performance improvement can be valued at over 10 times this figure)

It works with all cartridges (from £35 budget up to £8000 high end cartridges)Provides the ability to slightly adjust azimuth on tonearms which have no such adjustment."

The table came with a full molded carbon fiber tonarm and it's definitely better than the aluminum tube numbers I've had (thorens td325 comes to mind) which sounded like an aluminum tube in the background. This arm is better but it's still transferring background noise through it. I'm reasonably sure that's the culprit. I don't have any illusions of backgrounds as quiet as a digital player at my price point but I would like to get close. Thanks for the input.

It's getting a lot of raves on other forums. I might have to give it a try. If I do I will be sure to report my findings.

I'm sorry, but I still don't know what you mean by tonearm noise.  Tonearm bearings can be noisy, but I would think only on a very cheap tonearm.  Anti-skate devices can introduce a source of vibration by several different mechanisms.  But otherwise, what you interpret as tonearm noise may be failure to properly dissipate energy put into the tonearm by the cartridge, particularly low compliance LOMC cartridges that can't dissipate their own energy efficiently due to lack of compliance. In that case, I would not take steps to isolate the cartridge from the headshell; you might make matters worse.  Wish I could hear what you are finding objectionable.  The Cartridge Man thingy and the Cartridge Enabler are controversial to say the least.  For me, a no-no. I want the cartridge to be as tightly coupled to the headshell as possible and for the headshell to be efficient at dissipating energy.

put same cartridge in 2 different arms and listen to highly modulated grooves… easy to hear difference… arms are not just about better bearing / geometry but also resonance dissipation, damping and conversion…. 

i am not in the enabler camp… trading slop for damping… but i can see why some people might find it attractive….