New Townshend Rock 7 owner

Damn, 5" in one night! After living in the California desert for the past eight years (with temperatures in the teens---one hundred and teens!), the 23 degrees today (with ice everywhere) of Portland Oregon/Vancouver Washington is a major readjustment for me. No more shorts, t-shirts, and swimming pools, it's now thick jeans, flannel shirts, heavy coats, and staying inside! They're shutting everything down tomorrow, telling everyone to stay home. More time for music and movies!

Various clamps:

My table came with the acrylic clamp and the expandable metal washer, if it can be called that?.

After speaking with Max earlier, I wanted to try his latest metal clamp. ( I like to try things for my own knowledge, then, if I choose to post, it is from my own experience.)  It has a damping material on it's underside and comes with (4) different thickness of metal washers.

For my testing, I used the original, expandable metal "washer".

I thought initially, that I liked listening without the original clamp. I heard a dampening of dynamics, less air/bloom with the acrylic clamp.

The metal clamp is 180 degrees. It offers a vivid listening experience but I still find it somewhat uninvolving as opposed to no clamp at all.

I still find that no clamp gives me a more involving, a more natural, emotional connection to the music. The lower bass is more fleshed out.

Any of you tried them? Love to hear your experiences.

Having said all of this, for me, it gives me some flexibility for recordings that may trend too bright or too dark.

I found the same with my VPI table. I own the (2) VPI SS center weights, (one I applied a 1/16" carbon fiber circle to it’s bottom side with a center hole cutout of 1&1/4", this is a benefit in another way. Some lps are thicker in the center. This makes the stock VPI weight not sit "flat" on a record. A serious flaw in it’s design IMO.) a BDR two piece clamp and a Stillpoint LPI. I found here that I most often prefer the Stillpoints but have noticed benefits with the other two clamps on various recordings.

Interested in others’ findings.

An example of a lp I listened to this morning:

Elliot Smith "S/T"  This is a digital recording. Without any clamp it sounded too forward and/or bright in the upper frequencies. I listened again with the metal clamp. All of the dynamic extension is still there but still a little too forward/bright again. The acrylic clamp sounded , in this particular case, more analog in nature although it dampened the ultimate dynamic extension. The acrylic in this case is my favorite.

The perfect solution would be to have had this recording in all analog if it would had been possible. So we cope and deal with what we're given.

Hi All,

It's been a while since I looked at this thread... Slaw, you are a posting maniac! Thanks everyone for keeping it alive with your enthusiasm. Especially now, I feel so fortunate to have purchased a Rock 7 when I did. Even with Max's manufacturing tolerances being a little loose at times –– as in, the platter not being as true as possible (witnessed by looking at its vertical side surface while spinning, there is a small but noticeable wobble)... and yes, the leveling issues... and whatever else –– I'm over it all –– I just don't spend any more time and energy on that stuff (even though I enjoy the process) because my front end sounds so freakin' good it brings tears to my eyes. A music-loving friend, who knows acoustics and happens to be the architect who designed the Paris Opera House, also cried when listening to this system… saying: "you’ve ruined me, I can’t ever listen to my stereo again!” He then got up and hugged one of my speakers!

So that said, as one who is done tweaking for a while, I’m going to try and list every upgrade I made to the Rock 7 and note the impact it made on the sound of my system:

Upgrades:
~ Replaced stock motor with the TA Merlin-3 motor and DC-ish power supply –– snapped the timing into focus... everything before this upgrade now sounds blurry, which is hard to believe until you hear it.
~ 6-foot XLR motor extension cable –– moving the power supply away from the TT and electronics eliminated a low hum and blackened the background even more.
~ Took off the little nubs and put a thin cutout of Sorbathane under the round plate with the three depressions that goes beneath the motor, which further increased speed stability.
~ Replaced the stock belt with Mark Baker’s Origin Live belt… I was speechless and couldn’t believe I didn’t know about this upgrade beforehand. Made everything sound better… really.
~ Installed Phoenix Engineering’s RoadRunner Tachometer for a reality check on speed stability… it's really good to 3 decimal points (33.333) and fun to watch!
~ Replaced the already upgraded Excalibur 3 arm with the Helius Omega… wow, silky smooth and even more presence and inner detail.
~ Upgraded the awesome Ortofon Cadenza Bronze (which I re-installed on an Alphason 100s-MCS arm on my rare Alphason Sonata TT) to the Kiseki Purpleheart NS, which is even more awesome and a huge bargain at $3400 since it sounds like a $10K cartridge. The combo with the Helius arm and R7 is amazing and can definitely handle cartridges more expensive than itself and show what the best carts can really do and why they cost so much.
~ Got a custom-made acrylic cover –– you don’t want dust in your silicone.

There. Done. This of course, is only at the TT level... upgrades abound at every step down the signal path to the speakers, room, my ears… and finally, my very emotional response to beautiful music. Which, of course, makes it all worthwhile.

Cheers,
Alón