Cartridge ISOLATION; What Say You?

Wood is not inherently damping. Quite the opposite. Why it is used in so many musical instruments. Notice no musical instruments made out of carbon fiber? Fiberglass? Composite materials like these ARE inherently damping. 

"Nude" merely means the body doesn't extend around and cover as much of the mechanism. Other than that, no difference.  

why are only MCs "nude"? 

Because he is so handsome. Michelangelo did his best with what he had to work with.

Dear @millercarbon : Agree to disagree on the nude cartridge body designs because nude helps to low a normal developed cartridge body resonances and at the same time lower the cartridge weigth. Nude is an advantage over not nude designs. Have you first hand experiences about?

I remember the Ruby 2 LOMC cartridge ( I owned. ) and on the same times Cardas marketed exactly the same Ruby 2 ( made it by Benz Micro. ) with only one change: the Cardas wood cartridge body came with small holes around and guess what: every owner like it more than the original BM one.

I remember too what I did it ( tested. ) with my Allaerts MC2 Finish Gold where it performs with better quality levels in nude/naked version.

I own and owned the Colibri cartridge that if I remember was the first nude design and the Colibri performs really good ( specially the lowest output samples. ).


Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

These record grooves by the way, they are at right angles to each other which means each side is 45 degrees to vertical, which means Ralph is wrong all the vibrational energy is not in the plane of the platter.  

When I made this comment I was not referring to vibration of the stylus in the groove. I was referring to vibration from elsewhere- airborne, from the motor, etc.


What we are looking for with respect to the cartridge is that the cartridge body is held in locus so that the cantilever transfers the maximum energy to the coils within. If the cartridge body is able to move in anyway during that process it will be causing a coloration. Its only means of being held in locus is the tonearm. If it is able to move with respect to the arm, its a coloration. Therefore it must be coupled to the arm and the arm in turn must be competent so that it actually does its job.

FWIW I use LPs I recorded myself and also LPs that I mastered myself... I recommend doing the same for anyone who really wants to establish a reference.

I found this, makes my head spin, especially with short term memory issues.

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/tonearm-damping-damped-or-not-useless-welcomed

Raul is referring to damping the movement of the arm, rather than the arm tube. These are different topics.

In any case, I gather you do not advocate adding a soft layer under the tonearm base, or adding a soft layer above any cartridge, correct?

IOW, these 'soft' treatments can only be an improvement if they are solving a problem that could/should be otherwise avoided/eliminated, correct?

@elliotbnewcombjr

Exactly!

Pink Triangle or Funk Firm...chief designer Authur Khoubessarian. He had many firsts in the analog realm. These days, he's not widely recognized. Surely not a "fringe company"