Nude Turntable Project

Henry,
If you will recall some years back in my experimentation I was running three tables side by side. I had each set up well on the concrete slab. Making nice music in their own different and unique way.

The test for structure feed back was to lower the needle on a still record un mute and crank the volume slowly. Then jump up and down beside each table searching out air pockets in the poured concrete. You're not a true audiophile until you have danced with your turntable.

I then brought out the bad boy. The Acutex 420 str. As naked a cartridge as there ever was. And I teamed it up with wiring that was unshielded except for its own poly covering. What followed was interesting.

The Jean Nantais Lenco exhibited a drone like noise. If I remember it was almost mechanical sounding. In talks with JN, I added an extra ground from the motor to the plate but to no avail. I was unwilling to make further mods to his table so that was the end of the road.

The Technics SP10 II made noise and required an extra ground. It was added from where the bolts goes into the casing and then into the preamp. This cleaned things up and it was quiet. Almost.

My former modded thread drive TNT/SDS drive with pneumatic suspension. An absolutely black silence, as black as the table itself. It revealed a veil in the music that the SP10 was making.

As we say - You don't know what's there, until you hear "it" removed.

So the 420str is a very good test cartridge - imo. If things pass with that cartridge they can only get better from there. Cheers

Have you tried testing the resonance characteristics of the granite pipe?

Granite pipe 8^0

When I started this  exercise over six years ago, I began rather crudely with the Victor TT-81 simply supported on cones.
MODEL 2010 
Unsatisfied with the 'flexure' of the motor-unit about the cones, three years later I designed an independent stainless steel cradle to support the now 'fully nude' TT-101 motor unit...
MODEL 2013 
Two years after that, still unsatisfied with the vibrational and torsional movement possible with the flimsy steel frame.....I designed a cradle cut from a solid block of black granite and then polished.
MODEL 2015 
Despite the fact that my floor is a reinforced concrete slab cast on the ground and the turntable is supported on a thick laminated shelf cantilevered from a solid brick wall.....I know that there are low-frequency vibrations in all building structures and materials particularly materials under stress like suspended floors, shelves and equipment stands.
When materials are in stress (particularly tensile stresses)....they actually emit low-frequency vibrations between 2-10Hz and these frequencies are easily transferred through turntable plinths, motor units, spindles, platters, tonearm mounts and thus into the tonearms, cartridges and vinyl records themselves.
So for this year....I invested in a Herzan TS-140 Active Isolation for my turntable/armpods combination.
MODEL 2017 
This stand is designed for electron microscopes and contains numerous electronic actuators which isolate to 0.5Hz in all six degrees of freedom.
HERZAN 
So what is the difference.....?
Exactly what I expected.....but still almost unbelievable 💥
The improvements at first seem subtle but are all-encompassing....
Be aware.....this has NO effect on frequency response,
But every frequency SEEMS affected by suddenly having a purity, transparency and 'body' that was somewhat 'cloudy' before the Herzan.
There is absolutely no strain or stress to any music at any volume and as you turn up the volume...so you want to continue turning it up 🎶
I thought perhaps the bass would be deeper or more solid but no.....the bass seems unaffected but all the clarity and delicacy is bestowed upon the midrange and the highs with a singular crystallinity emanating from every cymbal, string, flute and horn.
The first casualties of unwanted vibrations in the analogue domain are the tiniest molecular-sized groove modulations which contain the most ephemeral informational DNA.
Qualities like body, soundstage, spatial depth and positional indications are simply smeared when other unwanted vibrations are present.

So it's been an illuminating and rewarding journey...
I hope you all enjoyed it with me....
Am I finally done?
I think so 😎

Hi Halcro,

 Congras on the Herzan! An amazing piece of hardware we TT owners all wish for.  I have the Minus K and I have noticed the biggest difference in using this passive isolation platform is when the volume is turned up.

You summed it up perfectly “There is absolutely no strain or stress to any music at any volume and as you turn up the volume...so you want to continue turning it up”

 The degree of effectiveness in using an active or passive isolation platform largely depends on the amount of air-borne energy in the room. My TT sits fairly close behind my left speaker and sub. Prior to using the Minus K in my system, on one occasion, I was able to make my Talea/Titan jump off the record groove when playing  “1812 overture”.  In using the Minus K, the playback sounds consistently beautiful regardless of the volume setting.

The beauty with the Herzan platform is as simple as “plug & play”. The Minus K is a passive system that requires careful set-up (centring the spring, and is load sensitive) to maximize performance.      

halcro
Congrats on your latest acquisition, were you able to find
one locally?

Thanks Norm,

Five years ago after Thuchan listened to my system, he suggested I look into an isolation stand and I investigated Minus K (I didn't know about Herzan).
The trouble with the Minus K (as you would know) is that it requires the load to be more or less centralised and evenly spread.
It can't cope with isolated individual loadings. It's large-scale wobble movement was also rather alarming....😱
I'm sure it suits your turntable perfectly. Can you remind me what turntable you have mounted on it?

The degree of effectiveness in using an active or passive isolation platform largely depends on the amount of air-borne energy in the room.

That's a common assumption many make but I doubt its validity.
Just think about it.......with the Minus K stand, you have not decreased the amount of 'air-borne' energy one iota and as you turn the volume up.....you are certainly increasing it.
Yet isolation stands (of all types) cannot prevent the air-borne energy in the room from interacting with the turntable plinth, platter, tonearms and cartridges directly.
The fact is, the air-borne energy is not of a sufficiently low frequency (and amplitude) to be a direct consequence.
More likely that some of this air-borne energy is absorbed by the rooms structure (including supporting shelves and stands) and transferred via 'structure-borne' feedback.
That's why the Minus K and Herzan stands were designed to combat 'structure-borne' vibrations of the lowest magnitude.

The Herzan is certainly a 'plug & play' design as you say.....
I just hope the electronic actuators and motor controllers have a long and durable life....🙏🏽