Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

Dover, by loosening the screw the bass range gained clarity and speed. The bass is not necessarily stronger, but instead of some bass notes sounding simply like amorphous low frequency energy there is air around the notes, much better pitch recognition, and the sense of a low frequency "floor" in the music wether there is actual bass in the music or not. Of course, this was after experimenting to find just the right amount of loosening of the screw. In my setup what worked best is to loosen it completely and then tighten it so the I beam spring sees the slightest amount of "grab". Thanks again for the suggestion.

Dave, What a nice surprice as I had no idea what you have been doing after your Trans-Fi wand mods. I was wondering why´s the sudden silence though. Meanwhile I have been doing my own TT project... and watching music videos on YouTube. Rare unseen videos though but a bloody waste of time.
Anyway, congrats for your fantastic vintage DD TT, it must be very special. Seems to be slightly better than your VPI.
Hmm, it may be quite boring to play only 45´s with 2 linear trackers on the modded TNT. But I´m sure you will find a solution soon.
The ET-2 and the Trans-Fi tracker on a super deck ! Finally something really interesting at A´gon, Evolution gaining speed.
We will observe your progress. Thanks in advance.

Chris.

Hmmm. Haven't put any thought into the trough location for literally years.
I put my design trough at the wand end to reduce any shake rattle and roll of the wand itself and by extension the cartridge. Since the key to performance of the trough is to better keep the cartridge body still, it seems to be the place to position it. We have the minimum number of joints between the paddle and the cartridge, so this should be the most efficacious place, aside from putting the paddle on the headshell like Townsend did. I was just not prepared to deal with the hassle of this approach.
My arm would need a bit of engineering to position the trough at the CW end. Difficult but not impossible.

****My thinking is it therefore makes sense to have the trough paddle attached to the end bearing cap as designed.****

Chris, interesting consideration, but I am not so sure that is always the "best" location. I use the trough as intended out of convenience, but have always been intrigued by the Townshend approach of silicone damping at the headshell. Additionally, since "We change resonances by using 1-3 springs and lead weight positioning", is it not possible that is precisely why damping closer to the headshell makes sense? IOW, if we optimize resonance characteristics at the rear bearing cap, introducing damping at that point would then change that resonance "balance" to the extent that, for instance, a different spring might perform better with a given cartridge.

Our sound systems are still so imperfect that, wether we like to admit it or not, we use resonance "control" as tone controls at least to some degree. Seems to me that in an LP playback "system" what we hear as sound improvements or degradations when manipulating resonances are the result of how those resonances affect the actual performance of a cartridge/tonearm system in absolute terms not just in the subjective sense of, for instance, preferring the brightness through a particular frequency band that particular resonances may introduce. To my way of thinking it is easy to understand how certain resonances may affect the actual working of a cartridge's suspension and motor given the very low level at which the mechanical to electrical conversion takes place. On the other hand resonances that occur within, say, a turntable's plinth will affect perceived frequency balance but, seems to me, are unlikely to affect the actual mechanical "performance" of the turntable. However, those same resonances will travel to the cartridge and may affect the performance of the cartridge, so it may make sense to damp as close as possible to the cartridge. Lastly, the "shock absorber" benefit of fluid damping in stabilizing the arms movement will be there regardless of the location.

Just some ruminations possibly the result of too much L-tryptophan :-)
Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving day!