Tony L
Administrator
I notice a distinct backing away from the ‘80s flat-earth ideology of what Linn described as a ‘closed loop’ between cartridge and main bearing and where the word ‘rigid’ was used in most sentences by reviewers, dealers and even customers. Over the past few years it appears things are changing and cartridge ‘isolators’ are back in vogue with offerings from The Cartridge Man, Funk Firm and Origin Live.
I find this all pretty interesting as for over 20 years now I’ve questioned and largely rejected the whole concept of “rigidity” as most audiophiles seem to understand it, and find most things (arms, cartridges, speaker drivers etc) sound demonstrably worse if tightened beyond the point where they are merely secured. I use the ‘cracked bell’ or ‘drum’ analogy; that the last thing you want is a tuned resonance, something that behaves like a tuning fork or conga drum. I strongly suspect this is one reason so many of my favourite speakers have screwed baffles (a broken bell doesn’t ring). It was Tom Fletcher of Nottingham Analogue who planted this idea with me at a long chat at a hi-fi show back in the ‘90s. His attitude was things needed to be just tight enough to stop them falling apart, but no more. Since that point I have listened and set things by ear. I have a sufficient grasp of physics to grasp nothing is rigid in any real sense and really all you are doing is modifying resonance in some way.
As such I’m interested to see these products emerging as to my mind they make some sense in that they may be preventing the arm and cartridge from behaving as a tuned resonant structure. My best guess is they are ‘breaking the bell’ the way a BBC-style screwed baffle and back door on a speaker cab appears to.
PS As I’ve followed the ‘loose is the new tight’ approach for a long time now my cart (a MP-500) is attached to the SME shell using the Nagaoka supplied plastic washers and with a little blob of Blu-Tac just under the SME logo to dampen the shell and effectively give a three-point fitting (vintage SME shells have a very small contact area, especially if you use the finger-lift, so this is a definite gain). Nothing tight, nothing free, it all exists somewhere deliberate between those points. I like the classic aesthetic of the arm with its shell too much to use a “better” one, but it would be interesting to try at some point with felt decoupling and I’m certainly curious to know if many have experimented with these type of isolation products, especially if you are using them with 1980s “rigid” tonearms (Linn, Rega, Mission, Zeta etc), i.e. effectively kicking that whole ‘closed loop’ ideology into the weeds!
I find this all pretty interesting as for over 20 years now I’ve questioned and largely rejected the whole concept of “rigidity” as most audiophiles seem to understand it, and find most things (arms, cartridges, speaker drivers etc) sound demonstrably worse if tightened beyond the point where they are merely secured. I use the ‘cracked bell’ or ‘drum’ analogy; that the last thing you want is a tuned resonance, something that behaves like a tuning fork or conga drum. I strongly suspect this is one reason so many of my favourite speakers have screwed baffles (a broken bell doesn’t ring). It was Tom Fletcher of Nottingham Analogue who planted this idea with me at a long chat at a hi-fi show back in the ‘90s. His attitude was things needed to be just tight enough to stop them falling apart, but no more. Since that point I have listened and set things by ear. I have a sufficient grasp of physics to grasp nothing is rigid in any real sense and really all you are doing is modifying resonance in some way.
As such I’m interested to see these products emerging as to my mind they make some sense in that they may be preventing the arm and cartridge from behaving as a tuned resonant structure. My best guess is they are ‘breaking the bell’ the way a BBC-style screwed baffle and back door on a speaker cab appears to.
PS As I’ve followed the ‘loose is the new tight’ approach for a long time now my cart (a MP-500) is attached to the SME shell using the Nagaoka supplied plastic washers and with a little blob of Blu-Tac just under the SME logo to dampen the shell and effectively give a three-point fitting (vintage SME shells have a very small contact area, especially if you use the finger-lift, so this is a definite gain). Nothing tight, nothing free, it all exists somewhere deliberate between those points. I like the classic aesthetic of the arm with its shell too much to use a “better” one, but it would be interesting to try at some point with felt decoupling and I’m certainly curious to know if many have experimented with these type of isolation products, especially if you are using them with 1980s “rigid” tonearms (Linn, Rega, Mission, Zeta etc), i.e. effectively kicking that whole ‘closed loop’ ideology into the weeds!
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