Tonearm microphonics
rauliruegas Do you mean that you tested before bougth it in your today cartridge room/system?Yes. I almost always evaluate components first-hand before making a purchase. |
@bdp24 Can an arm be "too" damped, too non-resonant? Are those two things the same?Not really. Removing resonance from the arm tube is a good thing and its impossible to overdamp the arm tube in this regard. One **massive** problem with that though: messing with the mechanical resonance caused by the compliance of the cantilever and the cartridge/arm mass is not good, unless by doing so you get it inside the 7-12Hz window. So if you are applying damping materials to the arm, you can mess that up and with dreadful results. Damping can be done by a damping trough too; which is an entirely different form of damping, but IME that can lead to problems especially if the LP is not perfectly flat. Generally speaking the arm will not need this kind of damping if the mechanical resonance is in the right window. So you have to be careful when bandying these terms about. They can mean three or four different things depending on who you're talking to and that's on a good day! |
bdp24, Yes, I do think it is possible to overdo damping. Specifically with tonearms, I have experimented with the damping fluid level in my Basis Vector arm and heard the difference with the fluid level in the damping trough of an SME arm. Too much damping results in a lifeless sound. I think tuning of resonance and damping of vibrations in all parts of the reproduction chain is NOT a matter of trying to minimize vibration to the utmost. I was in attendance when a representative from Symposium tried different shelves under a CD player. The very top model that Symposium offered, that does the most to dissipate vibrations as heat, actually sounded quite bad--dry and thin. The representative agreed with this assessment; there can be too much damping. I've heard the same with devices for placing under speakers, exotic racks, etc. I spoke with someone in the high end industry that has heard hundreds of different systems. He said that he has NEVER liked the sound of a system employing exotic and extremely expensive vibration damping rack/shelves. |
Atmasphere is right to point out that there are adverse side effects where the geometry of the disc is not uniform and flat when external damping in the form of silicon goop is applied. Not only does it damp resonance but it also exerts drag on the arm's movements not unlike extra friction in the bearing. this means if the arm has to weave from side to side or follow vertical undulations there will be slower reaction. However, here's the kicker : even if the disc was drilled perfectly centrally and was perfectly flat there would still be a problem because the tone arm must "sign" across the disc as it still must follow the inward "spiral" of the groove to its centre. Therefore Stringreen's suggestion was extremely sensible i.e. if the arm seems naturally well enough damped, try to run it without damping fluid. |
