A Copernican View of the Turntable System

Well said Chris.
Couldn't agree more.

Regards
Henry

Dear Dertonearm,
I, like many others here, am not quite sure what you mean by the force vector diagram?
I assume that you mean a diagram of all the forces inherent in the turntable but split into parts.....plinth/platter/cartridge/tonearm/armpod/plinth?
If so, I assume you want a complete circuit whereby all the forces 'balance out' diagrammatically resulting in 'Nil'?

I have a problem with this model (apart from Raul's point that it won't tell us anything about the sound) in that it takes the accepted paradigm with a 'plinth' being part of the equation and the 'armpod' being related to this 'plinth'?

When you state that

With the "nude" TT the surface/corpus underneath the motor and the armbase IS in fact the plinth and does act as one.

I also assume that you mean either the shelf or stand or even the floor acts as the defacto plinth?

The 'Copernican' view in my Posting does not accept this standard paradigm.
It does not accept that the force vector diagram be a circuit in the terms that you are proposing.

I believe that in the case of magnetically elevated platters, the diagram is forced into a disconnect although you may argue that the guiding ceramic spindle completes the vector diagram despite the fact that it transmits no load?

To avoid this argument, imagine if you will, an entire DD turntable (with plinth if you like), magnetically elevated above a shelf.
I can imagine it so it's logically possible?
Now imagine my rigidly held, isolated armpod fixed to the shelf so that the geometrical relationships with the elevated turntable/platter remain correct and immovable.
I believe that we then approach your "platter floating in outer space" analogy and I'm not sure that your Force Vector diagram completes itself unless through the magnetic field itself.....which I suppose is possible?

At any rate, as you say on many occasions, I'm happy for you to believe what you like and I'm sure my thought is reciprocated :-)

Cheers
Henry

Dear Ct0157,
Maybe some day I will find time to test the Denon without its plinth. Right now there are at least 3 major home audio projects that come first. I am a DIYer, and I have been extensively revising the circuits in my huge Atma-sphere monoblocks. This has already taken months, since I am very anal about making the necessary decisions. It will take at least 2 months more. Then I intend to install a new attenuator in my MP1 preamp. Then I may build an LCR phono stage dedicated to MM cartridges that we have been discussing. In the spaces of time between these projects, I have all those MM and MI cartridges to evaluate in all those tonearms I now own. Once I have a handle on that, THEN I might even think about trying the no-plinth idea, but I have no clue how I would mount the Denon in space, and to make an arm pod....sheesh! I am just as smug as you no-plinthers; I like what I have, and while I enjoy this discussion, I really don't buy any of the arguments thus far put forward in favor of no plinth and especially in favor of independently mounted outboard arm pods. (And as either Syntax or DT wrote, no one is really talking about no plinth, because absence of a surround still leaves you with a casing or something around the motor and drive assembly.) The only thing I WILL say, and I am rather tired of repeating it, is that obviously there are such things as "bad" plinths. I have heard two such. I can readily believe that no plinth may sound better than a bad plinth. But I think possibly the attraction of no plinth is primarily that it may introduce euphonic colorations that are ablated with a really good plinth that can render the turntable "neutral". (Of course, one man's neutral is another man's "lifeless".) And the beat goes on.

By the way, I certainly don't think I have "vast experience". Thanks for the compliment (assuming it was not facetious), but for most of my 35-year audiophile career, I owned only one tt, one tonearm, one cartridge at any one time. I am into this multi-everything craziness for only 2-3 years. Audiogon has been my undoing.

Dear Lew,
If you'd get off these damn audio sites you might get something finished?
:-)

But I think possibly the attraction of no plinth is primarily that it may introduce euphonic colorations that are ablated with a really good plinth that can render the turntable "neutral".

Hard to follow the logic here?