New Townshend Rock 7 owner

BTW and FWIW, I'm finding myself listening with my latest metal clamp (and my older expandable metal washer) I bought a few weeks ago for 97% of recordings. The clamp has Rock 7 printed on it.

Setting up your Rock 7: (the relationship of motor to platter, IE: a starting point.

I write this based upon my experiences so far...

What I find, sounds the best, based upon my trying different motor heights vs, platter...

You may be wondering, WTF?  Well, this does make a big difference my friends.

I've tried several motor heights vs it's relationship to the platter. In every mode, there was A difference. (You may prefer one to another). I'm just reporting that a difference is to be had via these (two relationships).

For those of you who may want to ascribe to my personal best..here you go..

Once you've aligned the motor housing with the platter and the belt is riding in the center of the sub-platter, and the belt on the pulley seems to be slightly above the conical part of the pulley.. you've come (very far).

Now on to the best sounding setting:  Assuming you have a visual "sight line" in relationship to the underside of the platter to the top of the pulley...the top of the pulley should be ALMOST level with the underside of the platter. Maybe VERY slightly above or VERY slightly below.

If you've achieved this, you're going to hear THE best sound. Simple, right?

In theory yes, in practice, it takes a little more involvement. Some may think, that I'm not serious,...I ask those, this.... "You want me on that wall... you need me on that wall"..

Happy listening

of coarse this assumes that the tt feet are tightened up as far as can go to the plinth.

Happy listening

Some of you may be interested in how the trough produces the substantial reduction in bearing rumble and motor noise (i.e in the 20- 80Hz region) it does.

It's because the stylus 'sees' this noise coming from both the plane of the platter/record and from that of the deck of the headshell above it, 180 degrees opposed or 'mirrored' to the platter, hence there's a net phase-cancellation.

This isn't just theory - there's an article by Max Townshend floating around somehwere with measurements and spectrograms (with/without damper) - the reduction in spurious LF is not trivial. Many people have noticed and remarked on the quiet or 'dark' background produced by the various Rocks.

That's just gravy though - the real benefits are in the stability imparted by this removal of spurious LF at the stylus (effectively, locking together of cartridge and platter from 20Hz upwards) - improvement in bass fidelity, tracing and tracking, etc' etc'.

Not forgetting the almost entire elimination of arm-cartridge resonance, of course.