A Copernican View of the Turntable System

Dear Lewm: ++++++ " With the big Micro Seiki's, and since we are all about building new or modifying original products to suit our beliefs and desires, isn't is possible to get around their perceived problems with the armboard mount by using (i) an outboard armpod, or (ii) a modification of the original cantilevered design? Since those tables reportedly have many virtues (never heard one myself), wouldn't this be worth the effort? " +++++

I don't think is worth the effort because the MS RX-5000/8000 has more defects than virtues on design, IMHO is a faulty TT design and other that good lokking because the shiny weigthy golden platters there is nothing to admire but its marketing.

The design comes with out any TT isolation for external internal resonances/vibrations, anything goes and stay inside degrading the audio signal. The heavy platters ring like a bell, MS choosed to seat the cantilevered arm boards exactly at the plinth footers where these footers has no isolation and everything is transmited to those arm boards, the motor came from Matushita but the control circuit not only has poor parts but not a good design.

I bought mine because I was a newbie/roockie with the MS TTs that have behind an unjustified fame but we audiophiles are " believers ".

Today I really don't use it any more, I learned on those MS TTs.

Other persons " die for it ", well they like the MS distortions: not me any more.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

Dear Raul, What you write makes perfect sense. I note that most of the MS users have modified their tables to get to where they are happy with it. Along those lines, I would have thought that an outboard arm pod would at least defeat that very real issue you cite about mounting of the OEM arm boards. On top of that, I noticed that some guys use thick mats of various kinds, and other devices, to reduce platter ringing. Further, many use more modern motors, as even the real diehards agree that the MS motors are not so great. By the time one is finished, not much is as original. But I cannot criticize the result, because I never heard one.

One might say that we Lenco users do the same thing; many factory parts are typically discarded and replaced in a well tweaked Lenco L75, but we start with a $300-turntable that is fundamentally sound, not a $5000 (and up) one.

Dear Lew, There are huge differences among people regarding
the 'force'of their imagination. From your writings one can
deduce that you can imagine every single component without
any experience with the 'thing in casu'. Why then do you need
so many TT's, arms ,carts, speakers, amps., etc.,etc.?

Regards,

Dear Henry, Re your last post. First, can we be clear that I am NOT talking about air-borne vibrations? You keep going back to that in order to debunk something or other that I've written, and I keep reiterating that I am not so concerned with that phenomenon, because any audiophile with sense will have arranged his or her equipment so as to avoid or mitigate this potential problem.

Second, I completely share your doubts about the efficacy of tapping on a shelf to assess its goodness as a shelf. But in order to assess how a shelf does react to mechanical energy, entering from the support structure, from the floor, from the whole house shaking because a heavy truck is passing by outside, etc, or even downward into the shelf from turntable motor vibrations, any of which phenomena can set it into vibrating, tapping is as good as any other way to do it. The only purpose for the tapping is to be able to locate the nodes, and to prove they do exist, where the shelf essentially does not move. (As noted, you need a stethoscope for this.) My whole point was about the fact that the shelf will vibrate or resonate at a certain frequency, depending upon materials, mass, etc, and that at that frequency, the shelf does not physically move in the same way everywhere on its surface. There will be minima and maxima of movement. This was my argument regarding the pitfalls of using an outboard arm pod. And for the reason just described, a shelf makes a rather poor plinth. (You COULD use a 1000-lb block of stone, as is done for electron microscopes and other very motion sensitive instruments; I admit that very high mass and using non-resonant materials are ways to approach this problem.) I thought it was a reasonable thing to discuss, but it seemed to anger you instead. Encoding music into wiggles in a piece of vinyl and then converting mechanical energy of motion induced by the grooves into high quality audio is really a primitive notion; there are no perfect ways to do it.

By the way, I re-read your original post. Wouldn't you say that declaring the cartridge to be the center of the vinyl universe is more akin to the Ptolemaic view of the actual universe than to the Copernican one? And did you know that Copernicus merely revived an idea of the ancient Greeks about a heliocentric universe? (I did not know that; did some further reading.)

Dear Nicola, As is sometimes the case, I cannot tell whether you are mocking me or paying me a compliment. But can you please give me a specific example to prove your point, if you are serious? This thread is really about ideas, so I am offering ideas. I usually try to admit it,when something I write is based on hypothesis or a thought experiment, rather than direct experience.

Well,dear Lew, I am of course not serieus. I was however in my youht when I thought that the philosphers are the guys with ideas and even ideas about ideas. One need to start somewhere so the ideas of my first philosopher were such that I thought that every single sentence was, without any question, true. This wonder happened in the same way with my second philosopher and also the third but by this one there was a problem. According to him the two 'earlier' philosopher were in total disagreement with eacht other and
even contradictory regarding nearly every subject matter.
Not sure if because of Freud or the mother nature who provided us (hopefully) with some defense mechanism I decided that 'all' philosopher are a kind of magician with words with the difference that they do not perform their act before some audience but write books instead. This way I was able to keep my own selfestime intact and also decided to become a lawyer. There are some of them which are called 'the best attorney' whom only few can afford. No philosopher ,even Popper, were able to earn this kind of money. But as is so often the case I also neither become 'aviator' nor attorney.
BTW with your imagination can you not reconsile the two: the mocking and the compliments? I admire you really but also like to tease you. Is this 'not done' according to some of Kantian imperatives?

Regards,