Glanz moving magnet cartridges

Regards, Halcro: Agreed, Henry, although I do believe you are teasing me! However there are other means of damping a tonearm. Fluid damping is effective when there is a mismatch of cartridge compliance and tonearm mass, evident in "scrubbing" of the stylus in the groove and sometimes of the entire TA. Woofer pumping may also occur. It also serves to dampen vibration. Filling the TA tube with the material of your choice, wrapping with heat shrink tubing, anodizing, or strategic placement of neoprene washers or Blue Tack are thought by some to also be effective means of dealing with vibrational feedback. Alternate materials such as wood or carbon fiber used in construction of the arm tube are other options.

Both of my Technics EPA arms incorporate a vibration absorbing mass in the counterweight (Technics has an impressive name for the mechanism, it escapes me at this moment) which is positioned magnetically. Compared to my several other TAs, I consider the EPA-250 well damped.

Damp or dump- Raul mentioned vibration in the tonearm, it would seem beneficial to either dampen these vibrations or provide a line transference path capable of dumping those disturbances elsewhere. Afraid I view our hobby as a veritable carnival of resonances, critically damping or redirecting those disturbances to a vibrational sink goes with the territory.

It might be remembered that resonances can be either constructive or destructive. I'd speculate that this, relative to the cartridge used, contributes or detracts from the synergistic qualities Dgob referred to in a previous post.

In the past I'd posted on vibration in an anchored beam. That a tonearm is pivoted at one end and only partially constrained by the stylus at the distal end adds complications, usually manifested as untreated border resonances, vibration induced ringing or overshoot due to lingering resonance. Given a day or so to reassemble data and references, I'll give a better answer. Should anyone else care to contribute, please do. It will, I'm afraid, take longer to sooth Nikola!

Peace,

Dear Henry, 'The Bavarian audiophiles (and the Japanese) know their onions'. I first thought about their 'onions' in the context of being alliance in both (I +II) wars. But I now think that the Germans think about FR-66 as their own... This is because Japanese are educated in mechanical engeneering in Germany even before the first one. So they are a kind of a spirutual father of the FR-66 as one among (many) other armours.

Mechanical damping comes in many forms - in the Naim Aro that I have the location of the counterweight and the lowering of the centre of gravity to below the pivot point provides about 6db of mechanical damping to the stylus. Furthermore the bearing deisign - radiused tip sitting in a slightly larger radius cup provides another 2-3db of mechanical damping. Thus mechanical damping can be achieved without the use of chewing gum, blue tack, rubber bands, ky jelly and other addons if an arm is well designed.

Martin Colloms - Stereophile
Lowering the counterweight to about record level has given the ARO excellent stability. This also lowers the center of gravity to below the pivot point, providing about 6dB of mechanical damping of the stylus. Another 2dB or 3dB seem to come from the bearing cup, which has a sapphire insert. The bearing is the ARO's stroke of genius. In other unipivots, a sharp pin is mounted to the turntable and the arm carries a cup which sits atop the pivot point. The ARO's arm carries the sharp tip, resting this atop a stationary cup: a true mechanical ground, and the only spiked tonearm I know of!

From an engineering point of view a true self centering unipivot provides the most rigid bearing possible in a tonearm - no chattering, no sloppy bearings, no drag on maladjusted gimbal bearings. No jitter or dither !

In my system the Aro is more resolving than the Fidelity Research FR64S.

The Graham has an upside down bearing - cup is in the arm - is not a true mechanical ground in the context of Martin Colloms comments above. This coupled with excessive arm tube dampening was the reason I chose the Aro over the Graham several years ago..

As an aside the Hadcock is not a true unipivot - the spike sits in the crook of nested ball bearings with multiple points of contact. Similarly I believe that the Satin "unipivot" that Raul lauds uses a nested ball bearing system as well and I suspect is not a true unipivot.

Dear Nikola,
I think you are right.....
The Fidelity Research FR-64s and FR-66s tonearms have a very Teutonic appearance.
The big Micro tables also have that same design ethic IMHO?

Dear Henry, There are mechanical engineering schools with their specific 'design ethic' but my 'picture' of the 'Teutonic appearance' is more connected with cruisers, aircraft carriers, tanks ans similar 'subjects' by the German education of the Japanese engineers.How then the big
Micro tables and the big FR- tonearms become by-products of this 'design ethics' I have no idea.