Tonearm mount on the plinth or on Pillar ?

It really doesn’t matter much to me if people wish to create a fantasy parallel universe in which the laws of physics, evidence and data don’t exist. Audiophiles are renowned for indulging in such shenanigans.
But when some, proffer nonsense as ’fact’ without a skerick of scientific evidence and insist that we swallow it as gospel.....it begins to matter.

Halcro, we are on the same page in this regard.

Unless, that is, if you are claiming you have a damping system so profoundly effective that ***zero*** vibration is the result- if that is the case, then you will have been successful where no-one has been before and the world will beat a path to your door.

In the meantime, I am the one with the skerick (sic) of evidence (actual measurements) whilst no-one else seems to have caused their hand to move to produce any. On top of that, I get accused of having no evidence... Ironic to say the least!

If air-borne sound pressure is a problem in the turntable playback system, then every increase in volume would of necessity degrade the sound.
Correct.

The defence rests....😎

We do agree on this point. We both recognize that air borne vibration can be a problem. I've seen exactly this affect turntables in the past, which is why I went through the lengths to create the machine I did.

I also recognized that no matter what I did, I would never be able to rid the machine of all vibration, so I made the plinth as rigid and dead as possible to prevent the cartridge from being affected by what vibration there was; allowing the mechanism to work for the goal (minimum pickup of noise other than the information in the groove) rather than against it.  The result is it is quite impervious to the volume level in the room; even at 110 db the sound is still very relaxed.

@thekong, I know that test tones are less appealing, but if you substitute a sweep generator in your test you outlined, then you can produce a chart showing at what frequencies the weaknesses lie and also display the waveform on an oscilloscope, allowing for a quantitative result. This is very much what we did in our test; only we did it with a silent groove since it was with the attempt to use an arm pod where we first noticed that there was a problem. Most audiophiles don't have access to a silent groove, and you don't really need one. Whether the platter is rotating or not really isn't important, since the noise we are looking to eliminate is not originating in the turntable to begin with.

Ct, I if I misinterpreted the photo of the Verdier, mea culpa.  But would it be possible to have this discussion without the heavy air of sarcasm and condescension?  Most of us are trained professionals in some specialized area or other.  And most of us must have been fairly successful in our field, in order to be able to afford the toys that allow for these discussions to go forward.  I take it as a given that none of us is stupid, in other words.  My eyesight may rightly be faulted, if I did not see the single photo of the Verdier correctly, but I am not stupid, either.  You're certainly not the only one who is guilty of the insult approach to debate, so I apologize if you feel picked upon.

Now, to get back to the Verdier, I DO feel that the OEM tonearm mount on the Verdier is a weakness of the product.  It does include a sturdy vertical pillar, as you say, but then the actual platform for mounting the tonearm is attached to that vertical pillar and hung out in space (see my reference to an inverted L-shape).  This allows for easy adjustment of P2S distance, but it is not the greatest idea for structural rigidity.  The new pillar-shaped pedestal looks better to me, no matter whether it is attached to the granite or not.

Sorry, Ct.  I just took another look at that photo, and I still think that the new brushed aluminum or steel pillar that holds the tonearm closest to the viewer is NOT sitting on the shelf; to my eyes it is attached to the granite base that also supports the bearing and the platter.  IOW, not Copernican.  Not super optimal for the other school of thought (the linkage school), either, but in that general direction.

Atmasphere wrote,

"Unless, that is, if you are claiming you have a damping system so profoundly effective that ***zero*** vibration is the result- if that is the case, then you will have been successful where no-one has been before and the world will beat a path to your door."

i don’t think anyone is suggesting that damping techniques are 100% effective. Nor is anyone claiming that vibration isolation techniques are 100% effective. However, there are two points I’d like to make. One is that - generally speaking - vibration damping techniques, e.g., constrained layer damping, are regegated to frequencies, say, above 30 Hz, whereas vibration isolation techniques, e.g., mass-on-spring methods, are primarily regulated to frequencies between 0 Hz and 30 Hz. And for the latter, vibration isolation, one should address as many of the 6 directions of motion as technically feasible for best results, not to mention attempt to produce as low a resonant frequency for the iso system as possible. Since the resonant frequencies of the cartridge and tonearm as I mentioned previously are circa 10-12 Hz then even such heroic iso means as Vibraplane and some other examples, with resonant frequencies around 3Hz, can provide isolation effectiveness of perhaps only 50-70% at 10-12 Hz. Obviously, obtaining a resonant frequency below 2 or even 1 Hz would be great. Nevertheless, one should do the best one can, including isolating the other gear from seismic type vibration, too.

geoff kait
machina dynamics

i don’t think anyone is suggesting that damping techniques are 100% effective.

Actually Geoff, I was being accosted about that very thing when I pointed out that it was impossible for any damping system to be 100% effective (perfect).