Cartridge ISOLATION; What Say You?

TRY IT Home Made?

Enabler is 1 mm thick I think, I'll start with 1mm of my gasket material.

The Acos Lustre GST 801 arm has the easiest/smoothest VTA on-the fly ever, as well as removable headshell type arm.

I'm gonna get ready, get Arne and Bill over here (that might take a while to coordinate), have a listen together.

I currently have two active MC Cartridges that I like a lot: Goldring Eroica LX Gyger 2 on aluminum and Audio Technica AT33PTG/2 MicroLinear on Boron. (they both use the same loading on the SUT as well).

And, a few MM cartridges mounted in headshells, Shure V15VxMR body with Jico SAS on Boron; AT440ml MicroLine on aluminum. And, my Elliptical: Shure M97xe aging somewhere, or did I give it to my photo friend Bill with my old AT120 TT? (he lives in Vestal NY near McIntosh and Audio Classics). I digress.

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Platter Mat:

After preliminary decisions, I'm also gonna mess this up with alternate platter mats:

1. Existing OEM JVC thick heavy rubber mat
2. Rigid Acrylic
3. Deerskin

With and without the JVC rubber below. Acos solving height changes instantly!

So many interesting points.

Question, is it not the job of the cantilever to function as suspension along with transferring the vibrations to the motor of the cartridge?

No, the only job of the cantilever is to transfer stylus motion to the generator at the other end. The cantilever is really just a shaft, a stick, sometimes a pipe. Cactus needle, in the case of Ledermann and Schroeder.   

Usually somewhere along there the thing runs through a donut of rubber, or elastomer if you want to get fancy about it. That donut, together with whatever it is mounted in that holds it in place, is the suspension.  

In which case, shouldnt it be the only thing that is vibrating/moving?

Yes, but how you figure that is ever gonna happen? Nothing ever moves without making everything around it move. Stylus moves, cantilever moves, suspension moves, and this same thing continues right into the cartridge body, head shell, arm tube, arm bearings, arm base, plinth..... This is the whole point of using special material like the Enabler to help minimize all this harmful vibrating.  

If the cartridge is also suspended, would that not remove the accuracy/immediacy/directness of the transfer of energy - as the place where that energy should go, would be damped. In being damped, seems like the energy transfer would be reduced.

Correct. That is why it is so helpful to distinguish between people like me who are carefully explaining the precise nature of decoupling, and those who leap to all kinds of unwarranted conclusions. 

To wit:

The cartridge however is very low mass and has to track a violently undulating groove. It cannot just be free to move. It must be held rigidly, but yet also in a way that facilitates some vibration to dissipate into the more massive arm, while damping cartridge vibration, and all of this at the same time as not reflecting vibration right back down into the stylus. 

One to remember. Watch for when they over-simplify the complex. Seriously, watch! It is fun, because for sure fifteen minutes later they will be over-complicating the simple!

cartridge bodies with inherent vibration dissipation?

wood bodied cartridges, specially formulated compound bodies, layered construction, IOW: built-in 'enabler' characteristics?

[What about] cartridge bodies with inherent vibration dissipation?

[Such as] wood bodied cartridges, specially formulated compound bodies, layered construction, IOW: built-in ’enabler’ characteristics?

Or the opposite – the so-called "nude" cartridge?

Is Air (eg nude) a "built-in ’ebabler’ characteristic", or is Air an entirely different matter we haven’t covered yet? How do the many nude cartridges fit into this discussion?

And just out of idle curiosity – why are only MCs "nude"? Why no other types – is the only reason the need to stick a new stylus into it from time to time?

Wood is not inherently damping. Quite the opposite. Why it is used in so many musical instruments. Notice no musical instruments made out of carbon fiber? Fiberglass? Composite materials like these ARE inherently damping. 

"Nude" merely means the body doesn't extend around and cover as much of the mechanism. Other than that, no difference.  

why are only MCs "nude"? 

Because he is so handsome. Michelangelo did his best with what he had to work with.