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

Dear @mijostyn  : "" With proper tonearm matching damping is not needed and indeed is a negative. It is like adding friction to your bearing and forces the cartridge to work harder pulling the tonearm back and forth particularly on an eccentric record. Vertical damping might cause difficulty negotiating warps. 

Don't use crutches. Fix the problem.  ""

Well it takes me 2 full years to stay very near your statement meaning due that over those 2 years my room system fine tunning proccess arrives to an incredible top position in the quality level of sound reproduction.

There is no single tonearm that totally " Fix the problem ", however tonearm designers work hard to do it and they try to do it using different alternatives but today tonearms in one way or the other were designed taking in count seriously the damping issue. Some made it choosing the tonearm build material or blend materials or other solutions as the SAT that not only choosed a material but how they use it for the arm wand.

Please read here something interesting about and that's not easy to avoid it even today:

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-Audio/70s/Audio-1979-03.pdf     (page 42 ).

and from the radical damped Townshend tonearm patent we can read:

" for damping a range of frequencies of vertical and horizontal vibrations of the carrying means, so as to provide relatively low damping for frequencies below 5 Hz, moderate damping between 5 Hz and 20 Hz, and relatively high damping for frequencies above 20 Hz.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a phonograph having damping means which is effective over a wider range of frequencies than hitherto known.

It is a further object of the invention to provide a phonograph having a vicous damper which has direct effect at the position of the pick-up cartridge.

It is yet a further object of the invention to provide a phonograph having damping means which can substantially avoid unwanted high frequency complex modes of vibration caused by the arm vibrating, and damp out other unwanted audio frequency vibrations of the cartridge and of the arm, whilst allowing free movement over warps and eccentricities. "

But in the last statement about " free movement " this can't be acomplished through silicon damping tray and certainly can't even in the Townshend and I said this because through my latest tests and due that I own very well damped tonearms ( that I was using the silicon tray ) with out the silicon tray sound reproduction I mean quality sound level reproduction is way better with out the tray specially from the midrange up range and all the high frequency range.

That clearly improvement is because now exist that " free movement " but we have to be really carefully that the tonearm/cartridge resonance frequency stays in the 8hz-12hz range.

Obviously that with out using the tray some cartridges that runned very well the canon shoots in the 1812 now have problems especially with the last 2 shoots however with the 1812 and other recordings  the bass range performance is extremely good. Even and talking of the bass range with out tray I had to increment the SPL in my subwoofers that means that with the tray probably existed higher developed bass distortions with lower definition due that was not ridding with " free movements ".

Seems to me that the free movement is the key here if the tonearm design is a good damped design.

R.

Technics knew very well and that's why used Boron blend in its tonearm arm wand and headshell along a resonance operation " Dynamic damping  balance weigth " through the tonearm counterweigth but Technics did not use the silicon tray as SME several years ago and today in its series V model and Triplanar and others.

The other Technics critical design characteristic is that the friction level in the bearing is as or lower than 5mg.

R.