A Copernican View of the Turntable System

Dear Halcro, the turntable, arm and cartridge do form ONE mechanical system. Tonearm and cartridge do form another mechanic-dynamic system of their own. There are wanted and ( more common ...;-) ...) some unwanted side-effects and synergies when putting the two "systems" together to get a record player.
The "plinth" and the "platter" do contribute (or detract ...) much more to the "sound" then most designers and audiophiles believe.
A full force vector diagram of the complete tt w/tonearm and cartridge and spinning platter (and building resonance ...) will nicely illustrate the interactions.
Cheers,
D.

Regards, Dover: You wrote: "There should be no cantilever suspension".

Please reconsider, a Motionless Electromagnetic Generator (MEG) would violate the first law of thermodynamics. One able to overcome this small obstacle will recieve Princes as supplicants.

Henry, please excuse this diversion from your OP.

Peace,

Dear Halcro: To your first question IMHO not only a budget analog rig can't beats a digital source ( DVD-A ) but even top analog rig can't do it so " easily ".
Digital source IMHO is approaching the begin of " maturity " time where even this technology can tell you if your system is " right or wrong " somewhere.

On your other question I think that a top analog rig can't approach the sound coming from a master tape. Both mediums are way different and IMHO I think that we can enjoy both.
I heard several times RTR tapes and till today " I'm not crazy about ", maybe because I'm equalized to the LPs performance kind of sound or maybe because I was not " exposed " to much time to that medium or maybe because I don't care seriously about.

Now, the digital source and the RTR " technology " is way way beter mediums to reproduce music than our beloved analog one ( LPs. ) that is so imperfect that I can't understand, today, why we like it so much ( other that we own thousands of LPs. ) when the " medium " has so many inaccuracies/distortions/noise.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Halcro sez ""The tone arm is the heart of a turntable system""

Syntax responds ""The best arm can't show their best abilitys when resonance's from the turntable are reflected into it""

Halcro this is easily demonstrable to one's self and there will be no debate here.

Dear Lew,
My proposition is that ideally the base for the tonearm should be an isolated, level and immovable object resistant to all forms of mechanical and electrical interference.
If that is not possible, a reasonable facsimile of such a base is perfectly workable as demonstrated by the existence of 'reasonable' turntables with integral tonearm bases.

What my theory implies is that those tables with tonearm bases subject to mechanical or electrical interference or those with flimsy suspended bases subject to movement and/or deflection will never be able to extract the correct information from the groove modulation?

And yes......this theory has been crystallised by my 'Nude Turntable Project' with the isolated remote armpods around the Victor TT-81.
With belt drive and Idlers, a 'plinth' is required to support the platter thrust bearing and/or various mechanical linkages whereas with direct drive, the sub-platter and motor are an integral unit......I think? :-)