Outer ring - who uses and what are your findings

I did that ritual for 5 years on my Classic 3 and it became so routine I didn’t really think of it as a chore after a while.

I use a TTWeights TTMega 1.2kg ring weight in addition to a 1.4kg "Nugget" centre weight, for EVERY SINGLE record that I play. The innovative way that the TTWeights ring is centred, makes it a no-brainer to use it.

I should explain that the TTWeights ring is placed on the record by means of a positioning cover which is so fast to use that it takes about a second to remove the ring and about 2 to 4 seconds to put it on! It takes me as long to put on the centre weight as the ring weight. Putting a record away in its sleeve and jacket and taking out the next one takes far longer than putting on the weights. It takes me about 10 seconds to take off the weights, flip the record, and put the weights back on. Given that I brush away static from the record and treat my stylus, every side change, the placing of the ring weight is a trivial proportion of changing record sides.

Here’s a two minute YouTube video by TTWeights, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOwvm_cuytc, showing an extreme example of a warp being totally flattened, but notice that the time it took to place the ring weight on the record was about the same as placing the centre weight on it - less than 2 seconds all up. I believe that the same is true of the techne-audio ring mentioned above. My understanding is that positioning the VPI and Clearaudio turntable-specific rings is more involved.

I hadn't seen that, using the spindle for positioning the outer ring. Very innovative.

I have a Clearaudio Ovation with Universal arm and VTALifter2, fitted with a Dynavector DRT XV-1s cartridge.

I use a HRM ADH 850 gr record clamp and the new style 1500 gr. Clearaudio Outer Limit ring with the black Delrin locator ring (it no longer needs that spider centering thingy). I use the clamp and ring on every play. I get absolutely no HF ringing or harshness ever, and the bass is fast, tight and detailed. It’s just a part of my routine for playing records (that also includes cleaning the stylus and brushing the record). Not to mention obsessing about slight warps is a thing of the past.

Sound like it would be much cheaper to just replace a few warped records with new copies which will probably sound better anyway.