A Copernican View of the Turntable System

Corby, are the tonearm wires on your arms the same aa they were stock or have some of the arms been rewired with custom wiring?

Dear Corby, I did not at all mean to imply that you cannot adjust azimuth in the manner you have chosen, using the Foz or any other method. But if you do it that way, leaving aside the argument about whether or not the base of the tonearm should ideally be in a plane parallel with the platter, at least you need to position the inner one of those thumb screws very carefully so that it lies in a straight line drawn from the pivot to the spindle (I think). Then, you could adjust that one thumb screw to tilt the top of the cartridge toward or away from the spindle, i.e., to adjust azimuth. (It's still imperfect because of the offset angle of the headshell, but many tonearms with adjustable azimuth live with the same source of error. Changing azimuth with Triplanar and Talea, for example, has a slight effect on VTA.) It seems to me that the location of the adjusting thumbscrew is critical in your system, otherwise the 3-dimensional location of the cartridge body wrt the LP (azimuth, VTA, possibly VTF, etc.) will be inconstant as the stylus traverses the LP, even moreso than with Triplanar, Talea, etc.

Also, I have to disagree with your argument about the primacy of removing "resonances" via the arm pod. True, the cartridge puts out some mechanical energy into the tonearm. In the best case, this energy is transmitted via the headshell and arm wand into the tonearm base, into the mounting board, into the chassis of a conventional turntable. But do you really think the energy is of such a magnitude that it is not dissipated in all these structures long before it could disturb the bearing and platter in any way? I think it is the job of the tonearm/headshell to take away the mechanical energy from the cartridge and that this energy is probably completely dissipated as heat before it even gets into the plinth. If the tonearm does not do that job, if the energy of the cartridge is reflected back to the cartridge rather than transmitted, then you do have problems with mechanical resonance, etc.

I don't mean to sound critical. These are just armchair discussions, as far as I am concerned. If it sounds good, it is good.

kbell
the spikes are stock brass thumbscrews from spaenaur and they were turned to a point on a lathe,
the wiring on my breuer and on my davinci are both stock, no mods there.

lewm
you are correct in your assessment of the positioning of the adjustment screws. it is not a perfect adjustment, but it is better than nothing, which is what most arms have, nothing.
i have mounted the breuer directly on the raven via an armboard, on the back of the table now. i have installed 3 thumbscrews in the armboard where it meets the plinth in order to get some azimuth adjustment. i mounted a van den hul colibri on the breuer and am having a heck of a time getting the azimuth good. i think i need another armpod!
as far as your second statement, i really don't know why isolation is a better sound, removing resonance was an educated guess. something changed for the better, whatever it is.

Sometimes we have a good and interesting result and an attractive explanation for it, but they don't always really go together. This happens all the time in science.