A Story about a Defective Signature Platinum

@pindac  Ah yes, Panzerholz. It's the best commercially available material that I know of. See, for example, the Reed website. Researchers in Europe, (Netherlands? Germany?) like GLARE, an acronym for Glass Laminate Aluminum Reinforced Epoxy, which is also interesting. But I suspected that biology might have solved the problem of stiffness without resonance a few million yearrs ago - and then I noticed pampas grass in the front yard. Hmmn ...

Thanks for the links.

@mijostyn Unfortunately, there's not much room to shape the wand. Evolution shaped these stalks and constructed them in a way which is pretty much optimal for the task. Boring out the middle would eliminate the mechanical integrity, as would shaving down one end. The only alternative is to put a spacer inside the prism at one end, but this eliminates the strength and rigidity of the closely coupled triple.

I don't like to compromise performance, so I don't use head shells. Besides that, my Mayajima Zero mono lacks the ultimate refinement of the Koetsu, so I don't use it much, and now that I have the Epoch, won't be using the Koetsu so much.

The bearing end of the tonearm is a plate of Panzerholz, which is attached to the air bushing plate (2024 alloy aluminum) with 4 machine screws. The bushing plate is attached to the air bushing (20mm NewWay) with a copious amount of elastomeric glue (M1). Counterweight is silver on a #10 steel machine screw.

@pindac  Looked up the links, thank you. The researchers used pampas grass fibres, interestingly. These seem to have been harvested from the stalks, much denser than what I used, The stalks are about 15% the density of a fibre bundle, and more rigid than balsa of the same density - I was going to try balsa next, after the pampas grass experiment failed - except that it didn't. That's evolution for you.

So I use pampas grass in the same way that nature intended: as a longitudinal whole - the same reason that premium Japanese walking sticks are made from biologicals which have been forced to grow in a certain shape - say a walking stick. Or so I have read.

Wonder why no-one is using elastomerics inside a pampas grass matrix? Well, we are.

The Reed Statement that the P'holz is a near perfect material for a Tonearm Wand is one that I have not seen before.

Interesting that the Company refer to it as Tankwood, as this is the name that Kaiser Speakers have adopted for it in their literature. I have not seen it referred to as this name in other places. (Panzer in German is Armoured in English).

I made it known before I encouraged a Wood Wand user to try out a P'holz Wand and they have not looked back.

I also have been demo'd a Tonearm where P'holz was being used to produce the parts usually that have a metal to perform a function. The P'holz version was noticeably improved and notable for the noise that seemingly had disappeared.

Metal on Metal interfaces do have a audible signature when used at the critical places in a Analogue Source, maybe even the metal body of a Cart' coupled to a Metal Headshell is also a contribution. I have seen AT and others have models with a embedded damping/dissipation material on a earlier model Headshell to transform energies and later models have the Diamond Hard Coating (Technihard) to transform energies.

To Americans, the word “Panzer” is synonymous with “tank”, owing to WW2 history, regardless of the true meaning in German. My guess is that the word panzerholz may be copyrighted such that some other manufacturer of a similar product is driven to call it tankwood. Using this material in a tonearm wand necessarily results in a rather high effective mass. So it’s not the best for high compliance cartridges, if you worry about that issue.

No Worries over here in the UK where many folk in the East of England are very German in their origins genetically.

Great Big Foreheads are an Anglo Saxon trait.