Nude Turntable Project

Halcro,
The rubber straps are flat bungee cords - available at home-goods or hardware stores. Yes I clearly hear an improvement with them - that tin can needs dampening. Perhaps it would be better to coat it somehow.

My observations on poorly recorded albums is that the better I make my playback system the better I can hear the flaws in the album. I am quicker to chuck bad records now than I was in the past because they are unlistenable. Of course the good albums just open up wonders.

As far as plinth/no plinth, Lew and I just exchanged posts on Vinyl Asylum and he easily stated that bad plinths cause problems but that good plinths can be a benefit. My opinion is that good plinths sound better than bad plinths but at least in the case of good DD tables no plinth is even better.

Lew also made the point (Lew my apologies for quoting you and especially if I, by some stupidity on my part, misquote you) that idler drive tables require a good plinth and that string/belt drives often don't. That may well be so, but it doesn't say anything good about the vibration issues of idler drives, does it.

As I have stated before, somewhere, a plinth is unnecessary and often undesirable because it collects, holds, and returns vibration to the tone-arm and turntable. I hear the loss of this vibration as gain in all things musical - like going to a better turntable. Things improved for me as I went from full plinth to semi-plinth to no plinth. I am not going back.

Banquo,
You do realise that if you get the Victor pigskin mat.......your turntable won't be fully kosher?
Continuing to amaze me with all things audio......how do you suppose it is, that removing a heavy rubber mat from the aluminium platter of the TT-101 and replacing it with a paper-thin pigskin mat......can create a sound virtually identical to that of the 1.8Kg Cu180 copper mat from Micro Seiki?
This I can ruminate on as I watch the sunset from my terrace at Positano.
What are the peasants doing?

Obviously if you cant hear much difference between a copper mat and a pigskin mat, then your system is either not very resolving or it is too highly coloured to hear differences in components.

Dear Aigenga: Congratulations and welcome to the CLUB!

++++ " As far as plinth/no plinth, Lew and I just exchanged posts on Vinyl Asylum and he easily stated that bad plinths cause problems but that good plinths can be a benefit. My opinion is that good plinths sound better than bad plinths but at least in the case of good DD tables no plinth is even better. " +++++

Lewm is a very good friend and I respect him a lot, problem is that on that subject he is only speculating because he never gave/gives the opportunity to hear/test the DD non-plinth/nude alternative so he really can't know and can't affirm nothing about but only speculate against people like us that we know because we have the first hand experiences " before and after " the nude road.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

I picked up a TT-101 on eBay a couple of weeks ago. I was very happy to receive it in excellent condition! Going through the process now of figuring out how to build an arm pod etc. Probably going to take a while before it starts spinning records in the system, but it's a project for fun so not in any rush.

I think my first effort for the armpod is to have a relatively simple brass pod(need something pretty heavy, could be steel or bronze too) made that I can attach an extra aluminum armboard from my Galibier to. This would allow some flexibility, make use of things I already have and require a minimum of machining.

Some things I've noticed. The bottom "cage" definitely seems like a weak link. I can totally understand the need for damping it somehow. If I were to build a plinth of any kind I think I would just remove it entirely.

The bearing actually has an area at it's underside that would be easy to create a vibration sink for ala Albert Porter's plinth design for his SP10 Mk3. He uses a threaded brass rod screwed through a lead plate which is supported by his plinth to make contact with the bottom of the bearing in order to damp vibration. An interesting idea. Even without a plinth it seems like an area where some sort of damping may be easily applied.

On page 24 of the service manual it discusses the braking mechanism. It says to spin two heavy records (200g each) on the platter at 33rpm and push the stop button. Then adjust the VR647 on the circuit board to get it to stop fully. This VR647 pot(?) was pretty easily found and looks like it adjust with a small screwdriver. It says to do the same procedure but with one record at 45rpm. Got me thinking that maybe you could use a heavier mat or center weight and still adjust the brake to get it to stop. Anyone ever try adjusting this?

Anyways, first project is the armpod. I'll report back once I get that working. Excited to have a direct drive to play with!

Matt