Certainly more advanced, which usually means more costly, turntables, use more advanced forms of suspension than simple high-tension springs. Think of a Rockport, a Townshend, or a Walker system. These do not use springs of any kind. Certainly, some very inexpensive turntables dispense with a suspension altogether simply to meet a low price point. However, such un-suspended tables are very prone to feed-back vibration and require very careful set up away from room nodes or on vibration damping stands. However, for instance, an expensive system like a Rockport does not simply eschew suspension, but they seek more efficient, most usually more complicated and costly, suspension methods than springs. A typical Rockport uses combinations of cosntrained layer damping and springless suspension. I think earlier Rockports used alternating layers of alumnium, visoelastics, and polymers, and somewhere in that sandwich a suspension consisting of brass "hats" sitting on brass or aluminum poles, with perhaps something like Sorbothane or Navcom buffering the point of contact between "hat" and pole. Newer Rockports and Walkers may use similar constructs supplemented my air suspensions. The most sophisticated of air suspension, like the Vibraplane, allow for vibration control in both the horizontal and lateral planes, which requires a system of air bladders more complex and costly than the simple horizontal flat bladder a la Townshend and its Seismic Sink and Rock turntables. Such a single bladder system can offer vibration control in only the lateral (up and down) plane. In order to control horizontal (side to side) vibration with an air suspension, a more complex system of multiple air bladders must be employed. If you check back issues of The Absolute Sound or Stereophile, you will also find reviews where the reviewers explain their own home-brew alternatives to springs. For instance in Linns or VPIs, the more adventurous reviewers will explain their procedures for doing away with spring--usually replacing them with combinations of points and Sorbothane pucks, although they will sometimes also leave the spring, or a piece of it, somewhere in there, for additional vibration dampening. In any case, I personally find springs an undesirable form of suspension and would avoid them at all costs (which may be high). I once went with a Townshend Rock Mk.III as a very cost efficent air suspended system; however, their trough system was a pain and I do not recommend Townshend to anyone. Look around--see what's currently available in the turntable arena; I myself have finished with that medium and do not know what is currently available. (By best recommendation--and probably one with which the reader will be unhappy--is to forget about big, heavy, easily worn and damaged polyvinyl chloride platters, and bouncy, off-center, VTA critical, wobbly, fragile, rubber-band spun, spinning things with microscopic, magically turned chips of diamond stuck on the end of another microscopic sliver of light metal which is attached to a miniscule pair of a-guy-went-blind winding 'em transformers thingamajig and go with a gee-whiz I still can't believe it makes music by chopping a waveform realfast 44,100 a second with only 2 to the 16th power (at the very most) discrete amplitude steps digital stuff; or gee--lookee what they just done: made it all way faster with lots more numbers but shrunk the band all down to jazz trios and solo pianos to demonstrate the new marvelous 24 bit and 96 kHz things when there's a way better but still ridiculousy expensive Direct Stream Digital Super Audio CD (does it fly? or maybe you can just add a digital flywheel? or maybe an analogue flywheel if you're stuck on vinyl (notice I didn't say analogue--hah! cause there's reel tapes still available and reel tape machines a tenth the price of turntables that sound ten times better). So pays yer money and makes yer choice. I say, if viny's still your bag, dump $10,000 or $20,000 on a Rockport or a Walker (never-ever buy a 'table with springs--that's how this whole thing started, didn't it?) and if you can't afford that dump your vinyl and spend $100 on a CD player or a used reel tape machine, both of which will sound leagues better than any piece of black, grooved, foot-long disc; anyway, if you really like music and haven't noticed that anything recent worth a dirt is released only in one format (i.e. the dreaded 16/44.1 polycarbonate 5 inch disc) then you really don't like music, do you (e.g. great period instrument stuff--you know, by guys like Mozart and Handel--played by guys like Tafelmusik; and great big exciting orchestras, like, ohhh. . . The London Symphony Orchestra playing film scores composed and conducted by John Williams (you may have seen a little film called Phantom Menace); or maybe the bestest, kick-assest rock'n'roll extant: The Grateful Dead--in whole live show 3 CD sets called Dick's Picks. So, regarding turntable springs: leave 'em in the turntables, fret yourself not over alternative types of suspensions, and leave the turntables on your dealer's shelf--hence is the road to hassle-free (vacuum cleaning machine-less, insane precision cartridge geometry adjusting-less, special non-staic sleeve-less, etc.-less) music heaven. Yours truly, C. Celli (yeah, like in plural of violoncello)
