Tonearm recommendation

Dear fleib: Of course there are several ways to damp and oil damping is only one of them, I posted several ways to do it in several audio system links but I talked too ofdamping through self damped build materials and a blend of build materials. I talked too that we can’t just disappear overall distortions but that the target is to mantain it at minimum.
Some kind of damping helps to change the frequency range where those distortionas happens or to convert to other kind of energy or lowering its SPL, etc, etc. I did not said nothing against all these.

Twe oil used on unipivots is used because mainly because its natural unstability of that kind of design but not really to damp overall the tonearm ( the only unipivot I own that does not needs bearing oil is the Satin. ). I heard too what stringreen posted in my Audiocraft but insiste that’s not the damping ( every kind. ) I’m talking about.
The damping mechanism used in the Technics EPA-100 or in the MAX 237 or in the SME V are out of the tonearm bearing because are not unipivots. In non-unipivots designs oil/silicon kind of damping goes out side bearings.

A kind of damp is that the arm wand be tapered as the cartridge cantilevers or as the SAEC and I think the VPI using 2-3 metal parts ( in the arm wand. ) joined.

The important subject here is that does not matters which kind of damping is used because all the system audio links need it. A non damped TT, cartridge, speaker or tonearm is only a " distortions generator ".

As I said the target is to mantain at minimum any kind of distortion. Insist we can’t really " overdamp ".

Now, it’s not only: " hey I need to damp ". No, we have to know where to do it, how to do it and what use to make that damp.

Btw, you don’t answer that big: WHY and what you want to listen.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

There are two kinds of damping used in tone arms. One is damping of the arm tube- in this case its impossible to overdamp it, except that there might be the issue of adding too much mass to the arm!

The other is to damp the **motion** of the arm. This is done with a damping trough or similar. In this case there is no question that the arm can be overdamped!

I'm just putting this out there in case there is confusion about what is meant by 'overdamping'. We need to be talking about the same things!

I like the Triplanar because its arm tube is well damped; independently of that it has a damping trough in case you want to damp its motion.

Dear atmasphere: You was the person that in 2011-2012 posted that we can’t overdamp the TT/platter TT " and from your today post sure we can overdamp if we interfere with its natural movement.

Fleib posted almost he same but as fleib you are not a rookie and " stop " the movement of TT/cartridge or tonearm obviously means we are overdamping but we need damping even here because the LP excentricty, skating force and surface waves that both goes against the " free " cartridge ridding. I know that and every one understand that even if no one talks about,certainly that’s is not what I’m refering to. I know that you understand very well what I’m trying to explain against fleib that he understand it but only try to beats some one.

I owned perhaps the best head amp ever Classé NIL-3. A design with an external power supply that ony this even today could be the envy for many design amplifiers.

Well, the main unit has to metalic shielded boxes ( very heavy unit. ) and as always I wanted to tweak/"improve" so I opened both boxes but to my surprise all the circuit board was not only encapsulated on the metalic boxes nbut truly encapsulated with a silicon like treatment that permit no single " door " to touch any circuit board component/part. This silicon like ( covering everything. ) encapsulation was used as damping.

I remember my tube SA-5 unit where Elliot puts especial attention to damp the circuit board and in the latter top of the line SA-9 he took it at " extreme " that damping trying to " kill " some kind of distortions.

One way or the other almost all the people inside the audio industry/market/hobby are trying to damp their system or designs to achieve better music information lowering all kind of the distortions.

Don’t you?

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

Hi Bill, i have used on my Blackbird Jelco 750L 12", Reed 3P 12", TW 10.5 and actual Jelco 750D 9" and Origin Live Conqueror 12".

Everybody knows that there is no better arm for the money than the Jelco`s.
The Reed sounds very musical, but has a resonance problem in lower bass frequencies. The TW has an incredible accurate bass, but maybe a small stage. Moreover the TW looks a little bit to small on the BB.

With the OL i can grow old.

Pictures of the Reed can you see here.
http://galerie-jumpy.de/categories.php?cat_id=20
From the TW i can mail and OL pictures i will make soon.

Cheers, Thomas from Bavaria