Nude Turntable Project

isolated/decoupled or coupled. Chris looks to me you have the best of both worlds on your SP10. As a basis a table that uses pods I would couple, a table with fixed armboards I would decouple. But nothing is fixed in stone since it would be hard to compare any two situations for any examples in this thread, just too many variable independent to each users platforms. i.e. Halcro, it looks to me that your TT is decoupled from its steel structure sitting on those rubber pads which has given you a positve result. I would suspect the changes you are hearing are not so much the metal shield but more from how the deck is now suspended.

Chris, Without getting into the debatable issues, I am trying to figure out how your own description of that SP10 matches with what I think I see in the photo. From the photo, and the two smaller inset photos which I cannot get my computer to enlarge for me, I think I see that the SP10 sits on spikes that are inverted such that their pointy tips are going up into the threaded bolt inserts on the bottom surface of the SP10 escutcheon. I don't see anything "compliant" in that. Then I see also that you are a Copernican; your tonearm is on a heavy brass pod. Is all of the above correct? Just by eyeball, your brass pod appears to be canted with respect to the SP10 platter surface. Probably an optical illusion.

Gentlepeople.
The debate between those that like compliant type supports and those that go for the hard supports has raged on forever. My view is that if you have a suitably still shelf, hard is the way to go. From reading here it seems that those that prefer hard supports make them all out of the same material. I believe that this arrangement can be improved, if your goal is to wick energy out of the TT structure. By using, say, three identical hard feet you are creating multiple paths to the shelf (ground). This is the electrical equivalent of an earth loop. I have experimented with identical and dissimilar feet on my TT and have settled with one fixed using a tungsten carbide ball, and two adjustable using large PVC discs. The PVC discs are softer than the plinth material and in theory tend to slow and impede transmission. The single TG ball is fast and creates one clean path to ground.
Just another view on things.

Hi.

Typo in my last post. Please substitute the word "mechanical" for "electrical".

Thanks

Hi Chris,

You will also hear more difference if you put a shelf just big enough to hold the TT and armpods on your existing shelf and decouple it further.

“Differences” can be dangerous?
There are many things in this strange hobby of ours which can make our systems sound “different”?
This is really not what I am after….nor you I think?
I am after a closer approximation of ‘fidelity’….a truth to source and a decrease in the many distortions which so easily manifest themselves?

35 years ago….I read that someone found putting solid rubber balls (cut in half) under each corner of the speaker……decouples the speaker and resulted in better sound.
I bought 4 rubber balls the size of tennis balls and cut them in half and placed each half under the corners of my speakers.
I must admit I didn’t hear a vast difference….but I listened like this for over a year until I read the theory of rigid speaker de-coupling via spikes?

Ralph Karsten of Atmasphere states quite eloquently….that with an outboard phono-stage, if the sound changes depending on interconnects used…..then one or both sets of interconnects is wrong and is adding (or subtracting) its own colourations.

You may be right that placing my whole turntable system upon another shelf which sits on isolators will change the sound?
If I then proceed to change those isolators….most likely the sound will change again?
Why is that ‘better’?….and who determines that it is?
I bought a complete set of Stillpoint Ultra Minis and placed them under my TT-101 instead of the spikes.
The sound changed not one iota! That was a good sign :-)
This is a test that you should do Chris……and also Dgob?
Anyone wanna buy a set of Stillpoint Ultra Minis? :-)

If your system is indeed improved by the added shelf and footers……I suspect that placing a Minus K stand under your turntable will make a bigger ‘difference’? One that may be …”hard to let go.”
Something to consider Chris?
At some stage….we all need to be comfortable with the choices and compromises we have made based on experience, learning and intellect.
The never-ending quest for ‘fidelity’ goes on :-)