Dear Nikola, If my slate plinths are at all "beautiful" it is only because the company that cut the slate for me does a nice neat job. Once I got the slate slabs back here, I just sealed them with a mixture of oils, and that's all I did for beauty. (The sealer makes the gray-ish slate go more toward the black color.) I paid not much attention to beauty.
Dear Raul, I consider that we are friends, so this is a friendly discussion. To me the issue of mounting the tonearm on a separate base is a whole different can of worms. There are really good reasons to link the tonearm and turntable bearing solidly in space that have little to do with massive plinths. But I do admire your willingness to experiment with all sorts of unfashionable ideas. I HAVE heard an SP10 in a minimal, low-mass plinth, and it was quite unremarkable. I have not tried mounting any tonearm separate from the turntable chassis, because I just think that's not a good idea. Here is my thought experiment that leads me to this conclusion: Suppose you are in a small boat floating in a lake. Someone asks you to perform an intricate task by hand, like calligraphy for example. The paper on which you have to write can be either in a separate boat, so that you have to lean out of your boat and do calligraphy in an adjacent boat, OR you can have the paper and pen in your own boat. Obviously, the task is going to be easier when you, the paper on which you have to write, and your tools are in the same boat, because a second boat is going to bob up and down independently of yours, thereby increasing the difficulty of doing your job maximally well. That's how I think of the tonearm/cartridge vs the turntable; they should be in the same mechanical universe, not in two different universes. The tonearm/cartridge movements due to environmental influences should be identical to those seen at the platter bearing. If you mount the tonearm on a separate pod, there are no guarantees of that. You are introducing another source of error, needlessly. I know there are fancy, expensive turntables that feature separate tonearm pods; I think the idea is fundamentally flawed.
Dear Raul, I consider that we are friends, so this is a friendly discussion. To me the issue of mounting the tonearm on a separate base is a whole different can of worms. There are really good reasons to link the tonearm and turntable bearing solidly in space that have little to do with massive plinths. But I do admire your willingness to experiment with all sorts of unfashionable ideas. I HAVE heard an SP10 in a minimal, low-mass plinth, and it was quite unremarkable. I have not tried mounting any tonearm separate from the turntable chassis, because I just think that's not a good idea. Here is my thought experiment that leads me to this conclusion: Suppose you are in a small boat floating in a lake. Someone asks you to perform an intricate task by hand, like calligraphy for example. The paper on which you have to write can be either in a separate boat, so that you have to lean out of your boat and do calligraphy in an adjacent boat, OR you can have the paper and pen in your own boat. Obviously, the task is going to be easier when you, the paper on which you have to write, and your tools are in the same boat, because a second boat is going to bob up and down independently of yours, thereby increasing the difficulty of doing your job maximally well. That's how I think of the tonearm/cartridge vs the turntable; they should be in the same mechanical universe, not in two different universes. The tonearm/cartridge movements due to environmental influences should be identical to those seen at the platter bearing. If you mount the tonearm on a separate pod, there are no guarantees of that. You are introducing another source of error, needlessly. I know there are fancy, expensive turntables that feature separate tonearm pods; I think the idea is fundamentally flawed.
