Tonearm recommendation

Dear bdp24: Agree, at the headshell is where to start the overall cartridge/tonearm damping. Mr. Townshend was and is right.

Btw, we must avoid to use any headshell builded with raw aluminum or raw steel, are the worst ones. We need damping there as bdp24 said it.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

Dear bdp24: Where starts the overall damping process in the analog rig?

Just from the cartridge designers/manufacturers. For all of them the self cartridge damping is extremely important for the cartridge overall quality performance.
The cartridge has its own generated resonances from the stylus/cantilever/suspension to the cartridge body buildg choosed materials.

Cartridge suspension is not only important to damping ( all cartridges has some kind of dampers down there ) to put at minimum and out of the frequency range we listen those resonances but to improve the cartridge tracking abilities and to fine tune the cartridge sound when pass through the designer voicing process.

In the other side the cartridge body build materials are critic too for additional resonances/vibrations/distortions stay at minimum. Here too we must to stay away of non damped cartridge body, especially those that uses full aluminum or steel: stay aways of that type of cartridges. Of course that the cartridge body shape is important too.

By nature metals are prone to resonate/vibrate more than other kind of materials.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

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.

I suspected that was the case and so made sure that I clarified my position, which is that there are two forms of damping- one of which cannot be overdone as I had previously stated, and the other (which I never use) which most definitely can!

Dear atmasphere: Yes and is appreciated.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

Wrm, I own a 10.5" Reed 2A with the optional azimuth adjustment. It's one of my favorite tonearms.  I don't quite understand why you say that you don't "need" the azimuth adjustment feature because of owning the Feickert Adjust stuff.  The Feickert tells you whether you need to adjust azimuth or not; it does not ameliorate the need for azimuth adjustment, if it's indeed needed.  I am sure I am missing something in your logic. That said, the azimuth adjuster on my Reed 2A, located at the headshell, is not my favorite feature of the tonearm.  I think some rigidity is sacrificed in favor of the adjuster.  On the other hand, it's a good location for azimuth adjustment, so that the azimuth is adjusted in the plane of the headshell offset, not wrt the pivot, as on the Triplanar.