Houdini - anyone?
- Thread starter Vinny
- Start date
Amber Audio
This is the Day
£300
Chris
pfm Member
Trouble is I really fancy it rather than a Karousel just to introduce a bit of esotericism into the experience . Sick and tired of so much engineering. I don´t want to understand it, just to enjoy it during those magic moments so few and far between. Don´t tell anyone but I actually had one yesterday while ironing my shirts, listening through my Beyer DT531s to Dire Straits , would you believe. Call me sentiMENTAL ..........
I hope to obtain one shortly - running through a logical set of listening "tests" is going to take a while though, probably a couple of weeks at least.
For the curious, the set-up will be a Plinnked LP12, cirkus, Hadcock GH228 and my spare cart' - an old but far from badly worn AT OC7. If I could go any more "down market", I would, as it is supposed lift lesser cart's rather than revolutionise the whole of analogue playback, but this is as far as that gets here.
Apologies for the delay.
I wish that I could tell all, but the instructions and parts as supplied do not allow me to mount my cart' to the Houdini/headshell. You have to cut two sets of two nylon bolts to fit, using spacers/jigs, and they do not work as intended (suffice to say).
I have got as far as mounting the Houdini ON TOP of the headshell, to give the change in effcetive mass without any other change, but can get no further. (The effect of adding the 1.67g of Houdini to the top of the headshell was horrible - FANTASTIC detailed lower mid's and bass, but not much else.)
I don't see an easy way round the hassle as the bolts have to be pretty damned accurately trimmed so that they fit correctly. I could near certainly lash something up to get (very) close, but would not achieve the intent of the Houdini.
I wish that I could tell all, but the instructions and parts as supplied do not allow me to mount my cart' to the Houdini/headshell. You have to cut two sets of two nylon bolts to fit, using spacers/jigs, and they do not work as intended (suffice to say).
I have got as far as mounting the Houdini ON TOP of the headshell, to give the change in effcetive mass without any other change, but can get no further. (The effect of adding the 1.67g of Houdini to the top of the headshell was horrible - FANTASTIC detailed lower mid's and bass, but not much else.)
I don't see an easy way round the hassle as the bolts have to be pretty damned accurately trimmed so that they fit correctly. I could near certainly lash something up to get (very) close, but would not achieve the intent of the Houdini.
Last edited:
DimitryZ
pfm Member
They should supply nylon bolts in an assortment of lengths. I can attest that cutting them is tricky.
LLLOL. Have you a Houdini or is that experience elsewhere?
The real problem is the jigs - one is missing and I am pretty sure the maths is wrong in how it should all fit together. It seems that sizes are near super-critical, so cutting things by eye/hand/scalpel could so easily fail.
DimitryZ
pfm Member
I don't, but I think I understand the basic design. It is critical to be able to bolt the cartridge to the bottom plate of the device and the device to the headshell to allow for the isolation system to work.
You can try getting a range of nylon bolts in incremental sizes and instead of cutting you can use a fine file or emery paper to reduce it further.
So did I, probably exactly as you
Not so, both sets of bolts screw into the same threaded parts of the upper plate - two pillars/nipples/whatever you want to call them. The cart' pulls-up against the lower plate which is attached to the upper via a compliant layer. There is only one threaded part in the Houdini here - the upper plate.
DimitryZ
pfm Member
Wow, I assumed entirely incorrectly. I thought it is a true isolator, so there is an elastomeric element now truly inserted between the headshell and the cartridge that will actually isolate the cartridge from the headshell.So did I, probably exactly as you
Not so, both sets of bolts screw into the same threaded parts of the upper plate - two pillars/nipples/whatever you want to call them. The cart' pulls-up against the lower plate which is attached to the upper via a compliant layer. There is only one threaded part in the Houdini here - the upper plate.
So this is essentially a very fancy shim or a constrained layer damping element? Can you post some close-up pictures?
Interesting........................the one here is nothing like even similar on the underside to this one - Funk Firm Houdini Cartridge Decoupler - GrooveWorks Aust Pty Ltd (recordclean.com.au), but it does mention two vesions.
DimitryZ
pfm Member
You must have the "bolt to" version. "Bolt through" version may be more forgiving. At this price they should be providing an assortment of nylon bolts.
Not long after I saw that there are two versions, I realised how they are assembled, and we were right - bottom plate attaches to the cart', the top plate to the headshell.
The version for threaded cart's, the heads of the bolts slide into slots in the bottom plate, the version for cart's with through holes has threaded inserts in the bottom plate. You can mount cart's with through holes to a Houdini meant for threaded cart's, but not vice versa.
Is the pic I posted above invisible?
It shows nothing that isn't shown in countless pic's all over the www, it does not show how everything is assembled (and neither do the instructions especially well).
So effectively the Houdini is currently doing what 20p of blutac could do. If I understand correctly, it is all on the user to cut the bolts to exact length to guarantee the full performance of the gizmo?