TONEARM DAMPING : DAMPED OR NOT ? ? USELESS ? ? WELCOMED ? ?

Dear friends: This is what a true cartridge expert says about the thread subject. This expert is A.J. vandenHul him self:

"" What is the advantage of mechanical arm damping ?

As you will know, there is a cartridge/tone arm resonance frequency around 8 - 12 Hz ( ideal range. ). In cases where the amplitude is too high (a too high mechanical Q-factor), it causes problems with the tracking of the grooves of the record. What is left as possible tracking ability is getting too low. So some treatment needs to be applied. An oil damped arm is an option. The viscosity of the damping oil is a part of the story, also the quantity. The higher the viscosity figure in centistokes, the stronger the damping effect ( his advise is no more than 500cst. ). Also the paddle surface makes a difference. The bigger the surface, the stronger the damping. But... keep in mind that any off-centre record also causes a serious problem in combination with your oil damper. The small cantilever has to pull the whole paddle trough the damping oil because of the eccentric grooves: two times every revolution. """

Nothing is perfect, trade-offs always exist in audio. Fortunatelly exist only a few recordings with severe off-center problems, the majority of the LP off-center issue always exist but at lower levels.

Related to that A:J: vandenHul answer comes this one when some one asked him about inner groove distortions and here his answer:

" When the music is recorded with, say, an amplitude of 70 micron (already high) and your arm resonates with an amplitude of 30 micron, you are able to track just a nice 40 micron. (This because a cantilever can at its maximum linearly track around 70 micron amplitude, of which, in this case, 30 micron is arm resonance, leaving only 40 micron for the music). And that is not enough to replay the recorded 70 micron without distortion. Or the anti-skating setting is too low for 70 micron, though works well with an amplitude of 60 micron. Or to save the record you reduced the tracking force. But sometimes you need more. Or there is extra friction in the arm at the last part of the record. Together with the 70 micron it gets too much.   "


Not only me but other gentlemans in this thread already posted that silicon oil damping improves the cartridge tracking habilities and there are several reasons for that fact and several facts that confirms it.

Other related answer is this one where he answered:


""" Is there any possibility to induce mechanical damping by means of reducing the cartridge’s electrical load impedance ?

 No, there is no feedback from electrical properties to mechanical properties. Only from mechanical to electrical. When you want to tune your cartridge mechanically it needs some mechanical work . ""


I just remember when was that @mikelavigne made comments about the " near field " seated pósition and was when he gave the anwser to my question and things were this way:

looking to his room/system I noted ( this last time. ) that his seat position was at near field position or at least nearer than in the past and he posted that through the time he changed his seat position to nearer one. He has reasons about that I think he did not shared that time.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

@bukanona

Company which built their reputation on tracking is Shure with V15 series If you’ll check Shure Ultra 500 which is the best in the line you’ll find that it has brush at the front. It’s not intended as anti-static brush, it’s part of suspension keeps it more steady.

The brush is intended to be used as an anti-static device. Shure refers to it as a ’Destatizer Brush’. What's confusing is the ’Destatizer Brush’ is also part of the suspension as it is attached to the ’Dynamic Stabilizer’ which is part of the suspension mechanism.

The anti-static brush is also VERY good with warped vinyl to help the cartridge from bouncing up and then down damaging the stylus. Trust me on this. I USED to play my Shure V15xMR cartridge with the suspension mechanism raised up until I unsuspectedly played a ’used’ new warped album and watched the stylus snap off right before my eyes. I was crestfallen...

@rauliruegas

My friend, never do or say this here - or anywhere else again.
Very uncool.

Japanese people are not a true reference as true audiophiles, they likes high distortions and unfortunatelly they don’t know that what they are hearing has those higher distortions. I don’tcare about those gentlemans, I only took them as an example

Raul, I agree to stay away from this thread but of course I have one long thing left to say.  You wrote,

"Your post change nothing about that cartridge/tonearm combination with a resonance frequency at 4hz and everything surrounded this 4hz.That you like it what you listening is not under question because that is your privilege.

In the other side, where I posted that " mass damping in tonearms is ineffective " ? don’t put words in my mouth, those are your words not mine . "

First, where did I say some particular tonearm and cartridge exhibit a resonant frequency of 4 Hz?  I think you must be referring to my having used the FR64 with an Acutex cartridge.  But I always pointed out that since the Acutex is old, we can assume its compliance is stiffer than original, and I also pointed out that I used a very light weight headshell on the FR64S when I conducted that little experiment.  OEM FR headshells are VERY heavy and contribute to its high effective mass. Since I never mentioned the headshell, we would have an equation with two unknowns, compliance and effective mass.  So how can you assume the Fres was 4hz?  Otherwise, I truly don't know what you are talking about.
Second, I posted earlier in the thread that perhaps the large amount of mass added to the base of the FR64S by the presence of the B60 and the massive aluminum tonearm mounting board that I use with the ensemble has something to do with why my FR64S sounds outstandingly good with a variety of cartridges, despite lack of obvious external damping.  I don't know this to be true, but it is a possible explanation, because the mass can dissipate energy as heat.  I took your (dismissive) response as evidence you disagree with the idea of mass damping.  Those words came out of your "mouth"; I did not put them there.
As to the new question about Well Tempered tonearms, I refer specifically to the WT Reference tonearm and not to any later products, such as the tonearm on the Amadeus, because I have not heard those.  My very best audiophile friend owned a WT Reference turntable and tonearm for about two decades before he eventually died.  In his last 2-3 years, because he was by then disabled, I was setting up his table for a new cartridge, when I noticed what I think is an excessive amount of damping, also poor control of azimuth, also a not so rigid pivot bearing.  Also for those 20 years, I was hearing how it homogenizes the sounds of widely different LPs, from his collection of 6000 LPs, making them all sound "good" or pleasant, but not often like real music. (Is that better for you than "alive"?  Alive means "like real live music".)  I attend live music at clubs and in concert halls at least once or twice a month here in Washington, DC, where we have the Kennedy Center less than 30 minutes away from my house, driveway to driveway, and many good jazz clubs.  Plus I have performed myself as a jazz singer, standing and rehearsing in front of live musicians. Plus I play the piano at home. Those are my sources of my understanding of what live music should sound like.
Have you ever publicly respected the opinion of anyone who disagrees with you, even when we are really only talking about opinion, not factual analysis?  Or is everyone else on the other side of any fence you care to put up "ignorant" by definition?

tyray, in my opinion antistatic effect  is very small and it's more advertising gimmick. 
I am a little bit confused why none of MC cartridges uses brush. Maybe there is some interference. For high compliant ones it should be very OK...

I had a Rabco in which I replaced the arm with carbon fiber and set up the cat whiskers to drive an opamp, complete with a bit of capacitive smoothing so the opamp could match the speed of the grooves. It worked well except that the track on which the arm moved was resonant and sloppy. Reducing the mass of the arm was a big deal though. I think that Audio magazine article really does itself an injustice by referring to ’pivoted’ as opposed to ’radial’ arms- in that regard it makes almost no sense unless you know that they mean ’linear tracking’ when the word ’pivoted’ appears....