Nude Turntable Project

Halcro.
My TT uses one fixed duralium foot with a central tungsten carbide ball which contacts the shelf. This gives a point contact much like a spike. The other two feet are PVC discs 80mm in diameter with a rebate such that the circumference only touches the shelf. These are adjustable. See a pic on my web site www.krebsupgrade.com
The triangular TT where you can see the adjustable feet.
My view on this is that having multiple paths to a mechanical earth creates a smearing effect that is clearly audible. "Earth loop" was perhaps not the correct description. The common electrical paradigm is that a component must have only one path to earth. My view is that the same holds true for mechanical systems.

So, yes, if you use spikes only one should have direct contact with the shelf (earth). The other two should be coupled to the shelf with a slightly softer material than the spike itself. I am not advocating anything that would be considered compliant here, just something softer than the spike, maybe a hard plastic.

Simply another point of view.

Thanks.

Halcro.

Part 2.
The same reasoning would suggest that there should be only one path from the LP surface thru the chassis, shelf, to the tonearm and on to the stylus. Your present iteration has more.

Thanks.

Nice one Richard, makes pefect sense to me. Something I will keep in mind for future projects.

I have always found it difficult to find adjustalbe footers for turntables to my liking. I like the ones that trans-fi makes that I use on my garrard but they are just too large for most tables. He uses o-rings on the bottom of the protector disc so should be easy to try by removing one.

I would think your method would be easily adopted to a table with fixed armboard compared to a table with multiple pods. Suprised the market hasn't adopted this method yet that I know of.

Another design philosophy that one might consider is to minimise the number of joins and material changes, hence transmission speeds, between the LP/platter interface, around the loop to the arm and cartridge/stylus. Empirically it would seem to make sense that a join between dissimilar materials could do some damage to the integrity of this loop. This could include CLD techniques which, while very effective, should be implemented with this in mind.
Something for consideration?

Hi Lewm - you posted

Lewm - From the photo, and the two smaller inset photos which I cannot get my computer to enlarge for me, I think I see that the SP10 sits on spikes that are inverted such that their pointy tips are going up into the threaded bolt inserts on the bottom surface of the SP10 escutcheon. I don't see anything "compliant" in that.

Sorry for the confusion.
The photo was my feeble attempt at a type of collage showing the latest setup Version 5.
But the previous pic also showed the previous version SS legs which confused things.

Here is an updated pic.

http://cgim.audiogon.com/i/vs/i/f/1377781727.jpg

Version 4 is the bottom right pic.
Moving clockwise

Version 4.5 can be seen and then the latest Version 5.

Version four uses the pointy Solid Stainless Steel legs - the points are matched to the indentation of the cone footers They are heavy enough couple pounds each; add in the sp10 weight - and you easily indent the shelf they are placed on. In this case its a Mennonite made maple block (acting in the plinth role in this setup). The threaded flat holes at the other end of the SS pointy legs use a threaded joiner and that side gets screwed into the sp10 (in all versions) Various different materials can be wrapped around the threaded joiner before inserting and will affect sound.

The latest setup shown - bigger pic - has everything rigidly bolted in SP10 and Armpod. The SS legs in this version have threaded holes both ends (with threaded joiners at both ends for bolting into the sp10 and the black shelfl which in this set up, is now in the plinth role. The same maple block is no longer playing the plinth role and has been decoupled. My definition of a plinth (so no confusion with my post)the immediate base structure that holds all the TT system goods. :^)

You had posted earlier

Just by eyeball, your brass pod appears to be canted with respect to the SP10 platter surface. Probably an optical illusion.

isnt this whole hobby a sort of audible illusion ? Its probably the phone camera shot in low light but even if it was a mini version of a leaning tower a pisa it would not matter. The ET2 mounted on it has three leveling spikes and can be leveled on any surface. I have also had the top mounted Dynavector tonearm on this solid brass armpod. Now a tower of pisa would be a problem with it.

I'd like to mention a small but very significant point. I add some oil in the one hole at the top of the brass arm pod that is used to secure the ET2.

I hear the difference. I believe the oil works (with resonances) in a similar fashion to the actual damping trough on my reference ET 2.5 which is in my main room.

Cheers