Armboard materials

[Tony L]

My feeling is this is similar to speaker cable. You can experiment & convince yourself you hear X difference now having put a different material board in.

I thought you made high-end pine cabinets for expensive boutique hand wired guitar amps (I’ve got one!)! Are you honestly saying there is no difference to MDF? Guitar amp buyers certainly think otherwise. Materials and interfaces matter IME. The musical instrument world is very similar to the audio world here, aside from thankfully no one wants to make a guitar amp out if CNC machined alloy. Yet.

Nothing wrong with the thinking there. Balsa though, that would be tricky. It warps like hell and being mostly fresh air if it's left as a straight board rather than a structure it has all the structural integrity of a crisp packet. Laminate it up, it might work then.

Armboards are fairly thick, though yes, I take your point. It is the mass I had in mind, not the material as such. I guess a Rega-like foam laminate may be good, but that is a fair way out of DIY scope.

 

[a.palfreyman]

Balsa with thin ply facings would be worth a try. Reckon that chipboard with veneer facings would be good too.

a Rega-like foam laminate may be good

Hot-wire cut pink styro-foam (like that on insulated plasterboard) with thin ply facings might work.

 

[nmtjb]

Weren't the old Pink Triangle Anni armboards a laminate of balsa and alu sheets or carbon?
I've had decent results with panzerholz and richlite on TD124's. I like the idea it doesn't move around at all but sounds similar to hardwood versions. I have a 12" Swissonor version, can't say it sounds any different to the home machined versions I've made (no rubber isolators). I suppose it depends on arm/cartridge combo?
Also, easy enough to machine these materials accurately with DIY kit, (though I have had the basic profiles waterjet cut for speed).

 

[The Captain]

I thought you made high-end pine cabinets for expensive boutique hand wired guitar amps (I’ve got one!)! Are you honestly saying there is no difference to MDF? Guitar amp buyers certainly think otherwise. Materials and interfaces matter IME. The musical instrument world is very similar to the audio world here, aside from thankfully no one wants to make a guitar amp out if CNC machined alloy. Yet.

Tony, I make the cabinets for customers Rift, Emprize etc. I am not saying & have never said, nor marketed my products, as them having any better sonic characteristics than say mdf. My customers think they do, so I make what they want. I don't have an acoustic lab to determine if my 3/4" pine is better sonically than ply or particle board.

My 70's Twin Reverb is particle board shell & even a chipboard baffle. Does it sound inferior at all? No. It sounds stonking (when it's working that is!). Many 70's fender BF's do too; & many are even reveered for their sound.

So your example only adds to my point in fact. Mdf is fine, perfectly good enough. Most probably.

Capt

 

[stevec67]

Armboards are fairly thick, though yes, I take your point. It is the mass I had in mind, not the material as such. I guess a Rega-like foam laminate may be good, but that is a fair way out of DIY scope.

Nah. It's easy. Get a suitable foam of the right thickness, get 2 outer boards of a material of your choosing, laminate it up with a glue of your choice, slap a board on top and weigh it down with a brick. Come back when it's dry, bingo.

 

[matt j]

I've already made a laminate xps foam and acetal sandwich subchassis but it didnt work out too well, still too flexible (due to the acetal, the foam is actually stiffer) and finding a glue that actually adheres to both, it always came apart.

I could try a straight up balsa or balsa mix, hardwoods are also easily done its the more exotic stuff like what Si mentioned that is beyond mere bodgers.

Re: damping, it was only going to be trial and error, i have no knowledge of what I'm doing there either (shock) I do know the deck suffers from the almightiest case of Linn/Thorens bottom end bloom known to man and it isn't arm or cart related as I've had them on other decks.

 

[Tony L]

Can you post some pictures of your deck? I’m curious where you ended up with the subchassis. My suspicion is less is more and the further you can get away from a traditional TD-150/LP12 ‘plank’ the better. It is maybe the one thing the Ariston RD80 got right, the ‘armboard’ is little more than a round puck/spacer, and is certainly something where materials such as balsa etc could be tried.

PS Some good pics of the RD-80 here on LencoHeaven. I suspect there was a potentially good deck in the RD-80 if you totally replinthed it (the metal baseplate is awful, the chipboard surround little better, the rest was pretty good).

 

[sq225917]

Pt offered carbon balsa on the anni

 

[matt j]

Can you post some pictures of your deck? I’m curious where you ended up with the subchassis. My suspicion is less is more and the further you can get away from a traditional TD-150/LP12 ‘plank’ the better. It is maybe the one thing the Ariston RD80 got right, the ‘armboard’ is little more than a round puck/spacer, and is certainly something where materials such as balsa etc could be tried.

PS Some good pics of the RD-80 here on LencoHeaven. I suspect there was a potentially good deck in the RD-80 if you totally replinthed it (the metal baseplate is awful, the chipboard surround little better, the rest was pretty good).

I ended up with a standard TD-150, aside from the plinth and armboard

 

[Qwin]

Yeh, the material and how it is attached to the deck, makes a difference.
If it works it works, is about all I can say, far to many variables to be objective.