Albert Porters after market panzerholz plinths

Jlsemrad, Interesting idea. Perhaps the reason that Raul likes the outboard tonearm pod with his plinth-minimal SP10 is related to isolating the tonearm from undamped resonances created by the motor. Still, I think the tonearm and bearing need optimally to reside in a closed system with each other.

I owned the Walker Proscenium with Black Diamond arm, the upgrade air suspension (yes Walker were available without), Prologue platform, latest version silver tonearm wire, two tonearm termination blocks both (RCA and XLR), the latest pump and of course, the Walker Ultimate motor controller.

The Walker was plugged into a dedicated 20 amp circuit separate from my digital. Porter Port plug (of course :^) and a very expensive top line power cable.

This rig was (and still is) one of the finest turntables ever made, I owned it for many, many years and the last upgrades were done here at my home by Lloyd Walker himself with help from Fred. It just does not get any better than that.

At the time of the test my electronics were Aestheitx Io and Callisto with every possible upgrade (including some that were not yet released to the public). World class equipment regardless of what Raul or anyone thinks of it.

The Walker was tested with three phono cables, two were RCA termination and one was XLR.

This test occurred over many, many months with dozens of participants. Raul was here for only a few hours so he has no idea what all went on. All together there were 15 or 20 from my own group, two reviewers, three audio manufacturers and various visitors invited from Audiogon.

The Walker was played as a system since the arm cannot be removed and we tried three phono cartridges and multiple tonearm cables in an attempt to hear every possible variable.

There was no agenda other than continual search to learn and work to improve my reference system. It's always been that way and will continue.

I still do not get the whole fascination with DD turntables in general, but I can see how a heavy plinth could benefit by providing better isolation from motor noise which I suspect would be more inherent to start with in general with DD tables.

To me once a table reaches a certain level of performance, such as teh ones discussed here surely do, the differences are often most subtle and personal preferences become a predominant factor. I doubt one could be conclusively determined to trounce the other.

Also, I am not so sure it is possible to keep any group of respectful listeners from influencing the opinions of the individuals no matter how professional or sophisticated the bunch in cases where performance is by design uniformly at an extremely high level.

As an example, we played a Bill Evans Lp that always sounded fabulous with the Walker. But when played on the Technics, a particularly complex and dynamic passage from the piano was suddenly controlled and articulate rather than muddy and garbled. So a heretofore unknown fault inherent to a belt drive turntable became apparent. This was no small, subtle difference. In fact, it was in a way embarrassing that we would think that up until that point everything was fine and wonderful when instead it was flawed. How were we to know that Evans was playing it one way and not the other?

Certainly the overall sound of a system is a product of personal preference, but in this case (among others) the better performing turntable was obvious.

John

Dear Albert: +++++ " This test occurred over many, many months with dozens of participants. Raul was here for only a few hours..... " +++++

I have a training that permit to know in " hours " what you could take " many months ". I already explained this to you in other thread even you " live " how fast I can detect " errors " or virtues due to that specific training.

Any one can do it if has the training/discipline process need it for.

I respect the members of the " group " I knew at your place ( including a reviewer. ) where I knew their listening aptitud too.

I think that you don't need to justify your choice because my posts.
As you I know what I heard.

Albert, my opinion is only that: just an opinion. What it matters is what you think and your opinion because is you who has to live with that system and who has to be happy with: not me. If you are happy then I'm too because of that.

The subject IMHO goes beyond personal " affair ". Maybe Mr. Walker can comes here and could give us his thoughts on the whole subject, things could be that I'm wrong.

In the other side: do you already tested the sp-10 nude version?, because IMHO this is what the thread " owner " would like to know.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.