Has anybody tried the Reed 3P?

Dear Lew&Sean, I have no idea what the best material for an
armboard or armpod is. I am totally innocent reg. any mechanical knowledge. My role or part in this thread become rather intermediary because I know Vidmantas very
well and am in the position to ask him any question you or
other members like. He is a mechanical engineer and inventor with many patents on his name. He used the expression 'acousticaly dead' so I 'translated' this in cork and acrylat because steel- and granite layers are certainly not 'acousticaly dead'. If however stainless steel is indeed 'ideal material' for the purpose he is (pre)supposed to know that I assume. Besides it would be for him much more easy to produce an armpod from steel than to construct and produce this complex sandwich from different material layers. However when I asked Lew if I should ask Vidmantas about those and other issues his answer was: no need to do that.

Regards,

Dear Nikola, As I recall you asked me whether I wanted you to inquire about Vidimantas' test results using aluminum or carbon fiber arm wands. I did not think it was important enough for you to go to that trouble.

I took my cue from the Kenwood L07D. The Kenwood has a very substantial brass and stainless puck-shaped base into which the vertical shaft of the tonearm is inserted. Then the shaft is gripped firmly into the brass and stainless puck by a ratcheting mechanism. The whole is also permanently affixed with the bearing cup by a very substantial steel girder. This is a subjective judgement, but I believe that one can hear the benefits of this structural strength in the way the L07D plays music. Note that other vintage Japanese tonearms also provided ways to achieve a solid heavy anchor for the tonearm in a material that resembles the tonearm structural material, e.g., Fidelity Research accessory base B60, SAEC accessory "stabilizer", and Micro Seiki stabilizer. There must be something to it.

Dear Lew, I have no pretention to know much about the
question in casu. But by 'accident' , as you already know,
I also own Kuzma Stabi Reference with an considerable
armbase made from slabs of acrylat and aluminum. I have
no preference for any kind of sandwiches but am not sure if
this apply the other way round. Anyway I think to know that
you have high regards for Kuzma. 'There must be something to it' ,
in those 'sandwiches'.

Regards,

Red cedar, Pernambucco and Panzerholz measure well in accelerometer tests but all of the hardwoods offered for the Reed arms measure fairly close to each other. To my ears, the different hardwoods I have compared sound essentially the same. The Western Red Cedar measures the flattest of the woods tested. Does that make it the best choice? Depends what you like. The cedar does sound a little softer. The sound most likely comes from not only having a different dampening factor but cedar has less torsional rigidity. In some systems, that would work fine. I personally think the hardwoods deliver more of what is in the grooves. The other factor to consider is effective mass. If you need a low efective mass arm, the cedar could be your perfect choice.

Aluminum armwands color the sound and IMHO, are a poor choice for an armwand. The aluminum tubing is a good conduit of the vibrations from the cart and the noises from the plinth/armboard mount. You have a super highway there. Of course there are different types of aluminum but most ring like a bell without prodigious amounts of dampening or other forms of regulating energy transfers. We have enough Band-Aids in our hobby. Why not do it right in the first place?

I have heard several other armwand materials and so far, wood rules, at least until we can find a 12" long cactus needle...

Armboard material is a subject for a book, or at least a full chapter in the book of audio. The big question is, what is the armboard connected to? How toxic is the mount? By that I mean how contaminated is the armboard mount with outside and internal vibrations? Aluminum can be tolerable if it is mounted to a "clean" surface but one can do better. If the mounting surface is noisy (toxic) then metal would not be my first choice. If the mounting surface is clean, then a good metal is stainless steel. Bronze and gun metal are also quite good and depending on other factors, could be excellent. For most applications, a medium hard wood is difficult to beat. Panzerholz could very well be the best overall choice for most real world situations. There are several other great choices that most would be surprised at hearing, again depending on to what it is mounted. Back to the salt mines for me.

Sean is right, the base of the Reed is stainless steel.

Nandric, I don't pretend to know what is best either. I was just commenting on what some successful designers are using. I have played with constrained layer design in my plinth and armboard and I believe it works well. That said I am sure the Reed pod should work quite well. I personally prefer not to use arm pods because its too easy to knock them out of alignment unless the pod and TT are super heavy. If I were to use a pod I would notch out holes for the feet of the TT and arm pod in the TT shelf to stop them from moving around relative to each other.

Sean