A Copernican View of the Turntable System

FWIW... my apartment building is wide and flat and is only 3 floors high. It is certainly not designed with the same features as my office building, which is 15 times taller, and has seismic dampening foundations.

Not sure what to say... My SX-8000 sounds better with an air-bearing isolation stand beneath it than without it, as does my SP-10Mk3 in a SAEC-like metal plinth. Both weigh a short ton. I am currently listening mostly to a very heavy direct drive turntable with stillpoints for feet. The sound is excellent. But I have yet to put an air table beneath it and I am wondering...

T_bone,

Meow,

"Some pod implementations have different isolation systems under the pod and the table, which makes for a different arm-bearing-to-table-bearing interaction, and this is something I would suggest against. In the end, it all comes down to implementation (Dgob's Chinese cats and your arm pods)."

Anyone using an arm tower and pneumatic/magnetic footers beneath their TT is decoupling these at the plinth. I assure you the logic around this being erroneous does not hold, IME. At least you seem to keep an open mind and that is all that anyone could ask for, whether or not we ever find agreement.

I thought it might be useful to look at some commercially sold arm-pods and the design thought between them?
3 current manufacturers come to mind:-
DaVinci
Redpoint
TTWeights
DAVINCI
DaVinci apparently make their armpods from wood. Different materials inside for damping purposes?
REDPOINT
I think I contacted them before making my armpods as the similarity is too obvious.
Their pods are made of any non-ferrous metal you want and chambers within the pods are filled with silicone oil for damping purposes.
I believe prices started at approx $2000 depending on height and other requirements....but could escalate from there?
TTWEIGHTS
Closest to a universal tonearm with adjustable heights etc. uses combinations of materials for damping purposes.

My own thoughts are that the prices of these commercially available products are too high.....obviously because of the mark-up factor involved.
The use of dissimilar materials for damping purposes cannot be bad...even if of debatable usefulness....but must contribute to the costs of production.
I believe that weight is the single most important attribute of a good armpod and I would do without some glamorous extras if loss of weight were the penalty?
What do others think?

I can add the Reed arm pod among the commercially available
kind (www.reed.lt ; accessories). But what about a 'sturdy'
one for cheap? I 'assist' ( by looking) my machinist while
he was busy to cut from a billet of bronze a collar for my
Pioneer P-70 tonearm. Not exactly Heureka but some kind of
Aha Erlebnis : this stuff must be very suitable for an arm
pod . Bronze is an alloy so depending on the 'amalgam' heavier or lighter. To add (more) weight one can choose larger diameter,etc. Lew already mentioned where one can get bronze (e.a.) in all kinds of dimensions. For the tonearms with surface fastening one need just 3 holes with thread on each side . By polishing the thing it will look
like made from gold. I assume nobody else got this idea?

Regards,

Err Nicola,
Did you mean like this?
BRONZE