Albert Porters after market panzerholz plinths

Dear Slipknot1: Pathetic was for Jlsemrad that bring to the thread an audio item that has nothing " to see " with the TT subject, I wonder what he want it to explain ( I don't care at all any more. ).

+++++ " Rule number one " +++++

btw, maybe those rules were " writed " by the AHEE and I don't always follow its rules. Even I don't always follow what I learned into the AHEE, remember?: " thinking out of the basket " .

If I need it or ask for I always like to share my experiences with out hide anything even if goes against me or against my audio item designs.
I can't be in other way or change that attitude.

Example, if you ask me something: what do you prefer? that I give a nice answer only for you be " happy " or you want to hear what I have to say about?

Do you know something?: time ago my audio friends call me to meet me at their homes along other persons to heard his system and give my opinion along the other people opinion. Through the time these same audio guys now call me for the similar " job " but along no one: just me ( private. ). You know why?, exactly that's why.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Jlsemrad, Interesting idea. Perhaps the reason that Raul likes the outboard tonearm pod with his plinth-minimal SP10 is related to isolating the tonearm from undamped resonances created by the motor. Still, I think the tonearm and bearing need optimally to reside in a closed system with each other.

I owned the Walker Proscenium with Black Diamond arm, the upgrade air suspension (yes Walker were available without), Prologue platform, latest version silver tonearm wire, two tonearm termination blocks both (RCA and XLR), the latest pump and of course, the Walker Ultimate motor controller.

The Walker was plugged into a dedicated 20 amp circuit separate from my digital. Porter Port plug (of course :^) and a very expensive top line power cable.

This rig was (and still is) one of the finest turntables ever made, I owned it for many, many years and the last upgrades were done here at my home by Lloyd Walker himself with help from Fred. It just does not get any better than that.

At the time of the test my electronics were Aestheitx Io and Callisto with every possible upgrade (including some that were not yet released to the public). World class equipment regardless of what Raul or anyone thinks of it.

The Walker was tested with three phono cables, two were RCA termination and one was XLR.

This test occurred over many, many months with dozens of participants. Raul was here for only a few hours so he has no idea what all went on. All together there were 15 or 20 from my own group, two reviewers, three audio manufacturers and various visitors invited from Audiogon.

The Walker was played as a system since the arm cannot be removed and we tried three phono cartridges and multiple tonearm cables in an attempt to hear every possible variable.

There was no agenda other than continual search to learn and work to improve my reference system. It's always been that way and will continue.

I still do not get the whole fascination with DD turntables in general, but I can see how a heavy plinth could benefit by providing better isolation from motor noise which I suspect would be more inherent to start with in general with DD tables.

To me once a table reaches a certain level of performance, such as teh ones discussed here surely do, the differences are often most subtle and personal preferences become a predominant factor. I doubt one could be conclusively determined to trounce the other.

Also, I am not so sure it is possible to keep any group of respectful listeners from influencing the opinions of the individuals no matter how professional or sophisticated the bunch in cases where performance is by design uniformly at an extremely high level.

As an example, we played a Bill Evans Lp that always sounded fabulous with the Walker. But when played on the Technics, a particularly complex and dynamic passage from the piano was suddenly controlled and articulate rather than muddy and garbled. So a heretofore unknown fault inherent to a belt drive turntable became apparent. This was no small, subtle difference. In fact, it was in a way embarrassing that we would think that up until that point everything was fine and wonderful when instead it was flawed. How were we to know that Evans was playing it one way and not the other?

Certainly the overall sound of a system is a product of personal preference, but in this case (among others) the better performing turntable was obvious.

John