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  3. 149278-1975

A reappearance of Black Diamond Racing?

I received an email from Music Direct a couple weeks ago offering the BDR shelves again. Anyone else notice this? I use them extensively in my system and actually use carbon fiber sheets in DIY projects. I'm a big fan of CF's usefulness in audio.
128x128slaw
audition__audio
1,534 posts
 
I had the cones under a component and also under a pair of older Kharma speakers. Wasnt much of a fan. I agree with geof in that I think the shape was wrong for many applications. I have never found a one size fits all solution in this realm, however.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,953 posts
 

Oy millercarbon, a lead shot loaded acrylic turntable platter! Geoff also disapproves of lead. Both of my VPI’s have the 1.25" thick TNT platter with a thin sheet of lead bonded to the bottom of the aluminum, a very effective vibration sink. I have both BDR and Goldensound DH cones, using the DH as feet for my Townshend Rock Elite table, whose plinth is an upside-down "baking pan" filled with gypsum. The ceramic DH feet are a better mechanical impedance match for the table’s gypsum bottom surface, but if I had a carbon fiber plinth I imagine the BDR cones might prevail. A carbon fiber turntable plinth---brilliant!

Just about any cone is superior to the Mod Squad Tip Toe, which are fabricated of a very soft aluminum. Under a heavy load, in very short order the tips of the cones become compressed and flattened. Okay design, terrible execution.

millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
The lead platter is mostly for looks. Chris came out with a much better platter, but it was all black and my lead shot platter just looks so good especially spinning..... besides, that upgrade would have been in my eyes a half-measure. The Full Monty which I still may do one day, is to have the platter machined out of a Source Shelf.

Right around the time I would have done that DJ decided it would be a good idea to steal my turntable design, and so never did get one thick enough for a platter. Could still be done easily enough, bonding a couple Shelf together for thickness then machining the platter. Chris’s brother Bryce did the Teres platters and could probably do one for me easily enough. Just need to get up the motivation to get into it again.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,953 posts
 
mc, Groovetracer makes both an acrylic and Delrin version of their Rega replacement platter, which are reported to sound quite different. VPI switched to acrylic for their platters for a while, but quickly considered it a step backwards from the Delrin they were using (for the top layer of the TNT 2-5 and Aries 1 platters, and the entire HW-19), and switched again to first stainless steel (in the TNT-5) and then aluminum.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
“Geoff disapproves of lead.”

You can say that again. Where lead is the most obvious for anyone who’s never figured it out, the bass gets all messed up, unnatural sounding and glumpy. It’s one of the very worst materials ever foisted on young naive audiophiles. It even happened to Pierre at Mapleshade and yes very far from naive. He used a ton of it at the shows. He even had a guy on staff who’s duty it was to make sure all the lead arrived at the Shows. Of course, when you look at my scheme how materials sound, from best to worst, according to hardness guess which material brings up the rear!
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