Millercarbon's Mega Vibration Control Journey
millercarbon OP6,439 posts11-05-2020 6:50pm "....Okay so here's how it works. You take a jab like that, turnbowm, boy do I hope you got your money's worth. Because congratulations, you made the list. This is the one and only response from me you will ever get. I am my own moderator, and you are banned. I see your name, I stop reading. Got it? Good....." Knowing that I will no longer be a recipient of your condescending arrogance is like a gift. Thanks, much appreciated! |
Limited time and money. So everyone knows the rack and everything else we're talking about here is a compromise of some kind. I'm talking about the rack because that's when I really started thinking seriously about vibration control. Which is funny because even before the rack there was the turntable. Turntables are a study in vibration control! The whole thing is doing nothing but vibrating. Something that now seems almost self-evident, but to me back then (as with a lot of guys it seems) it seemed like all the vibration was coming from the floor, or rack, or whatever. There was almost no thought given to the cartridge, arm, the table itself. Oh well. Live and learn. My first table was a Basis 2001. At first it went right on the floor. Then it went on two sheets of 3/4" MDF glued together. With different things, eventually BDR Cones, under the MDF. With a Graham 2.0 arm and Benz Glider I thought this sounded really good! For some strange reason I can never quite understand turntables seem to be really mysterious. Maybe because I went with the Basis it never was quite so hard to understand. The Basis arrives disassembled. Its really nothing more than 1" acrylic with some holes drilled, into which you screw four footers, the bearing, and your arm. An awful lot of turntables are to this day nothing more than that: plinth, feet, holes. Okay, motor. The trick it turns out is in how each of these controls vibration. The Basis used four pods or footers that were little cylinders filled with silicone fluid. Inside that were springs with little paddles that made the whole thing like a sort of shock absorber- spring and damper all in one. Looking back, why I did not experiment with different viscosities, or none, is beyond me. Oh well. Live and learn. Because that was my first hands-on experience with springs, only it wasn't much experience, because I wasted the opportunity to try and learn. Been making up for lost time ever since.... |
“Okay so here's how it works. You take a jab like that, turnbowm, boy do I hope you got your money's worth. Because congratulations, you made the list. This is the one and only response from me you will ever get. I am my own moderator, and you are banned. I see your name, I stop reading. Got it? Good.” I love all this! Please, moderator, don’t turn this off. It’s like coming out of a pub at night and watching a Dad-fight. You know nobody is going to get hurt like in a real fight, so you enjoy it all the more! |
I had just turned 12 years old. My father was just back from South East Asia. He had just retired. 3 guys and a female in a car, ran into the back of the car. we were in.. They were DRUNK... No biggie right... The three guys start swearing at my father, one hit him. It WAS all over in less than a min. I didn't see he had gotten out of the car with a small ball peen hammer. 3 men lay there moaning and one female screaming at everyone, except me.. I stayed in the car and got the 38 out of the glove box. I new I wasn't gonna get hit by ANYONE.... A kid from the south (and all over the world by then), in California, and 4 people thought they were gonna beat someone, up... I know what I would have done. Exactly what I was trained to do...Stop them by ANY means necessary...12 years old.... Dad fight.... They were really lucky, I seen him do a lot worse, when he was drinking... Number one reason I don't let the piano drink...Too much Irish in the wood and ivory.. :-) Regards.. |
The early bird reads the good post. Got to be fast to beat the snowflakes and censors around here. oldhvymec triggered someone with his edifying and entertaining post, now removed, leaving us all the poorer. Such are the times these sad dark days. Why don’t you just move along if it bothers you so much? Not like anyone is forcing you to read this. Far from it. If you’re not man enough to handle diverse points of view why bully your intolerant narrow mindedness on everyone else? Why not just move along? Please? The prevailing wisdom back then was vibration flows, and you can "drain" vibrations with sharp spikes that are like diodes, allowing vibrations to flow out but not back in. Huge amount of guys bought into this. This never made any sense to me. On the one hand we were supposed to believe the spikes had to be sharp to cut through carpet and stuff and go into the floor, the better to rigidly couple or anchor the speakers. But on the other hand these same spikes were supposed to somehow drain energy from other components, or prevent room vibrations from getting into the components. Or something like that. The story changes every telling, no one ever bothering to point out the logical inconsistencies. To me it seemed most of the vibrations were coming from the components themselves. That would explain why a phone book or other mass placed on top affected the sound. It changed the vibrations of the component itself. One totally unexpected experience seemed to prove this. Doing a Cone demo one time for a friend, instead of stopping and starting I lifted the CD player to remove the Cones with the music still playing. My friend said he heard the sound change- and become worse- the instant it was lifted off the Cones! If isolation was so important then surely my hands are more isolation than Cones. It should have sounded better not worse. If sharp spikes was the answer then it should sound better on them instead of being better on the rounded off BDR Cones. Just one of many observations that had me pretty well convinced the key to vibration control was control. As in stopping it. With stiff and highly damped mass. |
