FR64s & Orsonic Av-1s Effective mass ?

Dear fast_mick: """  To me the sound is perfect... """

good because that's the important issue to you and I can't disagree with.

Sooner or latter all of us go learning diferent audui subjects to improve our day by day music listening.

After several years I learned about the non-damped tonearms and headshells and why all goes against the music quality during playback. This statement has no relationship if what we are hearing through those kind of items like it.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

Raul, What do you consider proper dampening of tonearm resonance?  I was thinking on this subject.  There are different methods adopted by different manufacturers.  For example, the Triplanar has that elliptically shaped silicon bath mounted on the pillar near the pivot point (and the Triplanar arm wand is wrapped in a shrink-tube-like material), whereas Townsend is alone in providing the damping up near to the headshell, where perhaps it is most needed.  Still others, particularly unipivot designs, provide dampening right at the pivot point.  And Technics has that resonance control device built into the counter-weight side of the pivot.  Further, dampening can be achieved by the choice of material used to make the arm wand.  (We know all to well that you do not like the steel FR tonearms, for example.) One potential virtue of wood tonearms in my mind is the very fact that wood, being a natural amorphous material, will tend not to display a sharp peak at resonance and will tend to dissipate resonant energy rather than transmit it.  For whatever reason, I find that I have tended to like wood tonearms. I have heard carbon fiber tonearms, and without exception I have found them to be not to my liking; the sound is dull and lacking in sparkle that I associate with real live music performances.  This subjective impression suggests to me that it is not only dampening per se that counts; HOW you achieve dampening may also be critical.

Dear @lewm : Agree with you, there are several ways to damp a tonearm. Maybe as many as tonearm manufacturers but some of them just choose not to damp its designs.

Technics not only comes with that damping mechanism at the counterweigth but the blend materials used on the arm wand and even in the MK2 the Boron/aluminum hedashell has additional top plate damping.
Normally designers damp his designs not only in one way but use 2-3 ways to do it at the same timwe in diferent tonearm places.

The build materials per se sometimes are choosed by its damping characteristics as is the case of wood tonearm designs. Silicon damping mechanism along build material as SME: silicon plus dampening and magnesium. Damping at the bearing as magnetism or as in the unipivots. Others damps the internal arm wand as Lustre or AT. Micro Seiki MAX models are very good damped.

Btw, I don't like FR tonearms not because steel choosed build material but because is a non-damped design anywhere.

The enemy of the cartridge signal are: resonances/vibrations/distortions created and that's why every single tonearm and removable headshell must be damped. No single doubt about.

Almost everythhing in the analog front end is about damping. With out it we have and are listening just " sound"noise " but no MUSIC, high quality level performance.

As many things in audio and especially in the analogue experience is that people just don't want to learn and don't care to improve and grow up and live " happy " sticky in is each one " deep black hole " and they will " die " for.

Damping is critical everywhere in the system audio chain it does not matters if our system is a modest one or a megabuks one.

For me is just " ridiculous " ( for say the least " ) that today many of us are in love with undamped audio items !! and are proudly to " spread " that undamped BS and that's part of the audio world HIGH END ( ?? ) market niche where we all live. Makes no sense to me and I'm sure makes no sense to you. A free world!

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

Raul, Audio is not an exact science. In fact, it's not a science at all, and logic does not always predict what will sound best.  Thus, while I take your point on damping or "dampening", I still can listen to my FR64S and say "Holy Cow that's good".  I am trying to do some research on why it does sound good despite the problems you cite. One possible saving grace of my set-up is that I have the FR64S mounted in its B60 base adjuster, which adds mass closely coupled to the arm structure, and the B60 is in turn mounted into a massive aluminum arm board that is one piece with a bigger piece of alu bolted to the bottom of the plinth.  One theory is if you give the mechanical energy a good pathway into a high mass object, the energy will dissipate as heat without the ability to induce motion.  It's really dampening by another mechanism. I don't insist this is true; it's just a thought.