TONEARM DAMPING : DAMPED OR NOT ? ? USELESS ? ? WELCOMED ? ?

Dear @bukanona : Yes, I agree that my know-how in tonearms is " very poor " as you saidand I don't want to argue neither but at least let me ask: why do you think is " very poor ". Which your reference about?

As I always say: I'm willing to learn in any audio/MUSIC subject. So your help appreciated and this is in good shape.

R.

Dear friends: This is a clear example of the benefits of a tonearm damping mechanism as this Technics EPA250 mounted in a SP-10MK2 in the Ortofon extremely LOMC cartridge MC-2000 reviewed by Pisha in Audio magazyne ( page 83. )  where live measurements said the resonance frequency between cartridge/tonearm was/is 5.1hz and this combination tracks with out trouble the Telarc very high velocity cannon shots in the 1812 recording and this I can attest it because I tested  the MC-2000 several times with that great Telarc recording and only with well damped tonearms ( GST-801, MAX,EPA 100, AT1010. ) made the LP tracking with out problems ( with SAEC/FR/Grace/AT 1503 even that the resonance frequency was in the SAEC/FR/AT inside/nearest the ideal frequency range just can't do it. ): 

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-Audio/80s/Audio-1984-12.pdf

R.

Tonearm superiority isn't meant by tracking everything with all cartridges. It should do it also proper way controlling resonances and going fluently via deformations. 
If to use only tracking test Telarc, HiFI news or even better Ortofon test record you'll find that most of the high end cartridges don't track everything. For designer it's quite easy to make suspension softer and to get 100 μm peak although sound generated by coils and in case of too much fluency in suspension sound level will be uneven. So designer has to put into one sound profile - size of coils, impedance of coils and magnet type and shape, weight of cartridge and decide about suspension material, type and shape of cantilever it's material, stylus length and diamond shape. 
Company which built their reputation on tracking is Shure with V15 series If you'll check Shure Ultra 500 which is the best in the line you'll find that it has brush at the front. It's not intended as anti-static brush, it's part of suspension keeps it  more steady.

Dear friends: "  "  If a cartridge is properly matched to the tonearm damping is not required. "

through this thread that statement not only can't be corroborated/confirmed but the other way around: is totally false.
It's easy for any one of us make a critic or adverse opinion in an audio subject and unfortunatelly  this kind of posts are very often in the forums where the person that post a critic never gives any prove/facts that can confirm with out doubt that he is rigth, any facts that be the foundation of his opinion. 

So that kind of statements are not only false ( till can proved. ) but totally useless for all of us.

In the articles linked we can read:

"  The first (A) is the result measured with an arm/cartridge resonance of 7 Hz. In (B) the resonance is around 9,5 Hz and in (C) it has been put at 16 Hz and some damping applied. The lack of sidebands in (C) compared with (A) gives a clear improvement in sound quality in terms of increased stability and transparency in the stereo picture. From this it is clear to see that to improve audible quality the main problem IS TO REDUCE THE RELATIVE MOVEMENTS BETWEEN CARTRIDGE AND RECORD AS MUCH IS POSIBLE.
 !n other words, ONE HAS TO DAMP THE TONEARM RESONANCE . 
In pursuit of this goal one should not make trade offs with respect to rigidity of the tonearm tube and fixture. Flexing in the arm and other spurious resonances could then be the result and destroy the stability of the stereo image. "



""  However, one must realize that these resonances build up when hit by transients in the music, either direct from the groove or indirect via the loudspeaker. When the transient is gone the resonances deliver their stored energy BACK to the cartridge and IS NOW CONVERTED TO ELECTRICAL SIGNALS AT A TIME WHERE THERE SHOUILD BE NO SIGNAL. ""



"""  Lastly we demonstrated the influence on tracking force giving distortion in the midrange during playback of high frequencies. As a parallel to the now widely used term TIM (Transient Intermodulation Distortion) which indicates the distortion components falling into the audible band when high level and high frequency (out of band) signals are fed to a feed-back amplifier — we could introduce the word BIM (Ref.5). Bass Intermodulation — a result of a high level low frequency (out of band) signals from a record boosted by an UNDAMPED tonearm resonance. The last conclusion we can draw from these investigations is the means of avoiding BIM. Since we have to accept that practical records (Ref.2) contain a large amount of "rubbish" centred around 4 — 5 Hz including warps, the optimum solution is clear... In addition some DAMPING should be applied to eliminate oscillations and influence on the frequency response above 20 Hz. """

Btw, the capital letters came from me but comes in the articles.


""""  When looking a iittfe closer to the oscillograms in Fig.28 it can be seen that in the case of arm nr. 3, the tracking force 20% of the time is below 5 mN (half of the preset value). It follows then that the cartridge is not able to track high frequencies without distortion for a considerable part of the total playback time. In this connection it could be mentioned that in a corresponding time interval the Fig.27. Set-up for recording the tracking force variations during play-back of ordinary records tracking force is far above what it is Fig.29. Here we have shown on the B&K Type 2131 1/3 Octave Analyzer, the distortion from the playback of a 1/3 octave pink noise at 20kHz (from test record B&K OP 2011). supposed to be with possible acceleration of record wear. The actual increase in distortion due to mistracking is illustrated in ...""""


SO, Tonearm and Cartridge must be well damped no matters what till some one comes here and proves with facts/live measurements damping is not necessary to improve the quality performance of any cartridge/tonearm combination.


Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.