Nude Turntable Project

Hello everyone and especially Halcro and Raul.

Raul for your continuing posts to try out going plinthless (against what is the norm to use a plinth) and Halcro for your excellent experiment and what ultimately convinced me to try it on my Technics Sp10 Mk II.

My sp10 was in a 7 layer birch plinth with two arms - ET2.5 and VPI 12. I have three cartridges - Dynavector XV1, Clearaudio Virtuoso and a Benz Micro MC-3 cartridge.

I was very happy with the sound and was looking at getting another plinth as a next step. I gave the plinthless set up a try since it cost very little to experiment with. I was not expecting what I heard when I went plinthless with the ET 2.5 arm using the the Benz Micro MC-3. I won't go into subjective words reviewers use. All I can say is less distortion, very neutral sound. A big improvement.

I constructed a pod for my ET arm out of a block of steel 4 x 6 that weighs 18 lbs and sits on spikes. It cost me about $100 from Metal Supermarkets including the hole drilling.

The Sp10 is sitting on 3 BDR cones for now.

All of it sits on 4 inches of solid maple.

It is still a work in progress project.

I may be into a plinth again one day again but for now am very happy with this set up and I will have a pod built for the VPI arm.

Halcro are you still enjoying your set up?

To all - I would like recommendations on maybe using another material for the second pod recognizing I need to drill for the arm plate and spikes, and which of the three cartridges I have you feel would work best with either the ET and VPI arm. The Xv1 and Virtuoso cartridges are currently being re-tipped.

Is there a cartridge that would be a perfect match for the ET2.5?

Halcro and Raul - Thanks again and to all for recommendations on which of the cartridges to use.

Chris

Dear Ct0517: Good that you are enjoying your TT plinthless set up. Chris IMHO the " merit " comes from your self that decide to tryed.

+++++ " All I can say is less distortion, very neutral sound. A big improvement. " +++++

IMHO this is all about: " less/lower distortions ", I posted several times that our each one " goal/target " ( main one ) to attain excellence level on system quality performance is trying to obtain ( at each audio link in the system ) the lower distortions we can. As distortions goes lower ( elsewhere/anywhere. ) as MUSIC takes its real " overall meaning " like that " very neutral sound " you already experienced.

Any TT plinth has its own " distortions " and unknow behavior for all of us when we go plinthless we are taking out/switch-off a " distortion place/center " where the cartridge signal was and is degrade.

+++++ " I gave the plinthless set up a try since it cost very little to experiment with " +++++

this is exactly what I posted several times in this forum on the plinthless subject: everyone can try it with almost no " money " to invest.

I think that this plinthless subject is more an each one attitude for test it.

To all the people that support DD TT plinths I always ask them: do you already tested a plinthless set up ? why don't you try it?, no one till today give an answer about and follow their " road ", fine with me.

Something that is really nice is that all the persons that already try the TT plinthless set up all reported ( just like you ) that the quality performance beats the normal TT plinth set up.

This plinthless subject is just that other ones like DD TT that a few years ago no one cares about and in those " all times " I posted that the DD alternative could and can beats the BD one or that the MM/MI alternative is more than an alternative but a " superior " analog source against the LOMC alternative or that the way to go with LOMC was and is through active high gain phono stages instead setp-up transformers or that the way to go is to playback cartridge analog source alternatives through phonolinepreamps ( integrated ) instead stand alone phono stages or the latest " electrical power system source direct connection " instead all those " electrical power conditioners " or...or....

Over the time like what you are enjoying " things " takes its right and true " perspective ".
here in my country people say: " things fall by its own " weight " ".

I hope that in the future people gives to it self the opportunity to test and hear what happen with all those " audio subjects " and decide according, in the mean time the ones that already did it will follow enjoy the greatness of those " alternatives/subjects " .

¡ Happy New Year for all of You !

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Dear Chris,
It's interesting to hear your conclusions on the 'nude' Technice SP10Mk2.
It seems to indicate, as Raul has been urging, that people should at least try things before arriving at conclusions....especially if trying is relatively easy?
I was concerned at using steel for arm-pods because of the possibility of magnetic interference with such a 'lump' of ferrous material?
It may be interesting for you to try a 'non-ferrous' arm-pod next as a comparison? Of course that will not be as cheap as the steel option?
I still enjoy my 'Nude' TT-81 as well as my big Raven AC-3. As I mentioned, my experiences indicate bigger differences in cartridges and arms than perhaps well executed turntables of different drive philosophies?
Happy New Year to one and all.

Dear Raul and Halcro – thank you for the info.

Halcro excellent point on using a non-ferrous metal– I was so obsessed with anchoring the ET arm with weight that I overlooked that. Wish I had asked earlier. I hear no audible noise but my MM virtuoso cartridge would have told me more about any noise and it is being retipped.

Instead of making a second pod for the vpi arm I am now thinking of doing another ET pod in a non-ferrous metal. :)

Can’t tell you how much fun this has been – Like it has been said before there is so much real estate to work with - any arm can go on a pod and be switched in and out. Once you have a reliable drive system the possibilities and options are huge not being limited by plinth space and arms that will fit it.

I like all my cartridges with the ET arm but are there any sleepers I can try ?

Thank you again -Happy New Year to all

Great post, Henry, and I was not aware of this thread until this moment. As you know, I was one of the many who was and is in disagreement with Raul regarding the necessity for or value of a heavy, dense plinth to go with a DD turntable. But as Pryso says, you have not addressed this issue here. What I would like to know, however, is what IS your Victor tt sitting on or in? Raul makes a point that he uses the rare, and no longer available new, Audio Technica feet under the chassis of his SP10 Mk2. (As an aside, altho Raul evidently did own a Mk3 in olden days, he does not now own one and has not owned one since before he began his and our MM/MI saga. I really defy anyone to use a Mk3 with no plinth at all, because the torque of that motor will rotate the unfettered chassis at every start-up, thanks to Newton's Third Law, and screw up the alignment of all those tonearms you have stuck on outboard arm pods.) I would also like to know what is the make-up of that white shelving upon which you place your gear. Is it possible there is some fortuitously beneficial coupling between the shelf and the un-plinthed Victor? And finally, were you ever at any point able to compare the same tonearm/cartridge combinations on any two of the turntables you tested? By the way, I would rank the Victor as high up among the best of the mid- to upper level Japanese DD's, but like the Denon DP80 and some of the Kenwoods and Sonys, it has not gotten much attention compared to the SP10s. It is not obvious to me that the TT81 would be inferior in any way to an SP10 Mk2. (I would rank the SP10 Mk3 on the highest plain, along with the P3, the L07D, etc. These tables DO kick ass.)

So far, we have you and Albert Porter who have each compared a "good" vintage dd turntable to a current top line belt-drive turntable, with surprising results. I would guess there are others who have done a similar comparison and reached the opposite conclusion, but since they heard what they expected to hear, they have not bothered to comment. As you know, I am firmly in the idler- and direct-drive camp based on my own experiments in my own system, but since I never owned a $10,000 belt-drive in the first place, there is always some residual curiosity.