Technics SP-10 Tonearm Pod instead of Plinth/Base

I have such a setup, I got an Sp10, I took out the plinth, given a cheap one, but it was like taking the bell out and leaving only the little metal ball inside it.
I made a pod for the tone arm with 3 different metals and it is pretty heavy, trust me it wont move. The Sp10 is sitting on its own with no plinth at all, I have cones holding it from the original chassis, we actually discussed even taking the chassis off.
The improvement was impressive, in micro-level detail and air around the instruments.
Isolation is very important and the cones that support the SP10 can change the tone of the setup, for a tubed Phono preamp I like solid steel cones, for SS I use the famous Audio Technica Support Isolators with metal cones. Actually my favorite sound came from a combination of cones.

The Pod base stands on cones also, that improved the sound a lot also.

I dont want to rub the people with plinths the wrong way, this is my private setup and I like it, my system consists of triamplified 5 way horns.

Check out theanalogdept.com/stefano_bertoncello setup, he uses a Garrard with a Pod also.

Dear Dsa: The plinth or not plinth subject is so controversial because no one of those plinth advocates guys never test/try the SP-10 non plinth alternative ( at least I never read that any one of them tested. ), so they don't know for sure which approach achieve better quality performance.

Well, I did and that's why I support the non plinth in the SP-10 and with a tonearm separate tonearm pod.
How anyone can talk on the subject if never has the opportunity to hear it?

Dsa, if you care mainly about quality performance more than how it looks my advise is that you try it ( it is inexpensive to do it. ) before pay a lot of money for the plinth solution and then decide about.

I'm not against any SP-10 alternative on the subject, my clear and precise position here is: how to achieve the best quality performance, that's all.

Regards and enjoy the music,
raul.

Raul has a point; I have never heard an SP10 sans plinth. Really, there are two issues here: (1) plinth vs no plinth, and (2) outboard arm pod vs mechanical linkage of the tonearm mount to the tt chassis. I feel more strongly on the latter subject (pro-linkage) than on the former. It would be simple to take a piece of plywood to form a skirt fastened to the underside of an SP10, with enough area beyond the boundary of the chassis to allow for mounting of a tonearm. Then you could put the chassis on feet like Raul has done, and you would have no-plinth but with linkage. I may try that. But you guys can keep your outboard arm pod. One other issue that comes up whenever Raul gets into this subject; who else has a set of those Audio Technica feet? Since they are rare, what else would do as well? I could imagine that the no-plinth SP10 might have a nice open sound quality, or it might not.

About the Theory of Mechanical Linkage of the TT chassis against the tonearm, in my point of view, less vibrations are better than "joint" vibrations. Now to theorize here seems a bit ridiculous but any way I will give it a go: To have a synchronized vibration could work in order to lets say minimize the sum of vibrations, but this would mean that both the Tonearm and the TT are at the crest of the vibration at a given moment and at the valley, in complete synchronization, if one is at the valley and the other at the crest then it is better to have them Isolated, in a separate Pod. Now, in music we know vibrations are in a lot of frequencies, not only at one, so to have a synchronized movement that would annul the vibrations in all frequencies seems a bit complicated.

This would be theorizing on a result I found in practice, I dont know how valid that could be since we could also theorize on the contrary.

Practically I like it better.

Thanks everyone. For me, a lack of funds is the mother of invention, so that's why, at least in part, I'm thinking of Raul's clever approach.

I've always been a little circumspect when it comes to wood and turntables. I believe that its use transforms the turntable into a musical instrument (I also consider that sprung suspensions add to the euphonic mix). While all plinth designs have this effect, the goal (for me) should be neutrality. The more 'stuff' attached to the device that is extracting the micro signal from the groove, the more chance for colouration.

Lewm: Good points to consider. In place of the AT pneumatic feet of Raul's set-up, I was thinking of some of those fantastic feet from Herbie's Audio Lab. They would perform the isolation task very well and secure the TT to prevent dancing across the room... The company also make a great matt that is perfect for the SP-10. As for the pod, checkout this pod with adjustable feet, layering, damping and (brass?) weight:

http://www.turntables.lt/gallery/tonearmturret/norm_04859_2009-04-04.jpg

Rnadelman: Ah, the layered approach. If I had to go with a plinth, I think the plywood/aluminum woud be the best sonically. There is someone here (In OZ) who makes them. Do you think that they do a better job than wood of draining unwanted resonances?

Jsadurni: See the link above- is that the kind of 'pod' you made? Would you say that your setup keeps the speed and bass reproduction while extracting the upper mid and treble with air/space/soundstage depth?

Raul: It seems that Jsadurni is getting great results from the non-plinth + tonearm pod approach. I agree- I can always try the setup first. The feet I can use later with a plinth if the pod idea doesn't work.

Keep the idea coming, thanks everyone!