[simoon]

About a year ago I gave an old (but perfectly working) Systemdek IIX to my nephew because he showed interest in vinyl. And not because he's a wanna be hipster, but because he's a musician and likes the sound of analog.

Now that he's got the bug, he wants to tweak the table to see if he can get it to sound better, partially for fun, partially because he's a struggling student and can't afford anything better now.

The table already has a Isokinetic 20mm acrylic platter, which made a noticeable improvement.

Any other ideas for DIY tweaks he can do?

[Scott F.]

There's a couple of things you can do to tweak the Systemdek.

The first is almost free. If you flip the table upside down and remove the base, you will find that the bearing and tonearm are both attached to a beam that is suspended below the plinth. Pick up some plastic clay or window (rope) caulk and put a healthy coating of the caulk all over the beam. Don't make it too thick as it will over stress your suspension springs. With this tweak you will find that you will get a slightly blacker background. What you've done is dampen the common support of the bearing and tonearm helping to keep bearing vibrations away from the tonearm.

The next big thing is (assuming you have a Rega 250 arm mounted) is to pick up an offset counterweight and steel end stub. Expressimo used to make used to make what they called the Heavy Weight. Since Sal stopped making them, one of the major tonearm companies started making them and for the life of me I can't remember who it is.  Anyway, this addition makes a that little RB250 sound pretty darned good. The bass is more solid, the arm tracks much better, it really becomes a fine budget arm.

After that it becomes a lot more labor intensive. Here, you need to fill the underside of the plinth with MDF to add mass. As nice as the the Systemdek sounds, adding mass to the plinth really helps it out. Again, the background becomes blacker. Here, you have to be careful what ever you place below the plinth doesn't interfere with the suspension.

BTW, I did this to a Systemdek 2X2.

Hope that helps.

[neobop]

"Wanna be hipster" LOL 

Tune the suspension like a Linn. That makes a real difference. If it's not  bouncing straight, you'll get better performance in every area, once tuned. You have to adjust the springs from underneath. Each time you turn a spring you have to re-seat it cause it twists. It's a PIA but worth the effort. If you need more details let me know.
neo

[BaMorin]

"Wanna be hipster" LOL 

Tune the suspension like a Linn. That makes a real difference. If it's not  bouncing straight, you'll get better performance in every area, once tuned. You have to adjust the springs from underneath. Each time you turn a spring you have to re-seat it cause it twists. It's a PIA but worth the effort. If you need more details let me know.
neo

I addressed this in the "linn joke" thread.  The springs needing tweeked into position is exactly what is solved by changing out the bottom grommet with a squared rigid perch.  All springs must support an equal load, while being compressed an equal amount. If any springs are compressed more than others to get the platters level for play, the system is not in tune.  I set all my AR tables up wih the suspension, arm, platters, etc out side the table so I can make critical measurements of equal mass vs equal compression.

[simoon]

There's a couple of things you can do to tweak the Systemdek.

The first is almost free. If you flip the table upside down and remove the base, you will find that the bearing and tonearm are both attached to a beam that is suspended below the plinth. Pick up some plastic clay or window (rope) caulk and put a healthy coating of the caulk all over the beam. Don't make it too thick as it will over stress your suspension springs. With this tweak you will find that you will get a slightly blacker background. What you've done is dampen the common support of the bearing and tonearm helping to keep bearing vibrations away from the tonearm.

This is the first thing that came to our minds, but we were going to use Dynamat, since I already have quite a bit lying around. It's lightweight and does a great job dampening unwanted resonances.

The next big thing is (assuming you have a Rega 250 arm mounted) is to pick up an offset counterweight and steel end stub. Expressimo used to make used to make what they called the Heavy Weight. Since Sal stopped making them, one of the major tonearm companies started making them and for the life of me I can't remember who it is.  Anyway, this addition makes a that little RB250 sound pretty darned good. The bass is more solid, the arm tracks much better, it really becomes a fine budget arm.

It's a Linn Basic Plus.

After that it becomes a lot more labor intensive. Here, you need to fill the underside of the plinth with MDF to add mass. As nice as the the Systemdek sounds, adding mass to the plinth really helps it out. Again, the background becomes blacker. Here, you have to be careful what ever you place below the plinth doesn't interfere with the suspension.

We thought of doing something similar, but then I read on another forum (ecoustics.com), that the Systemdek like the Linn is not meant to be high mass. Their reasoning is that they want the energy to be released as quickly as possible, through the feet and out of the system.

We were thinking of doing this and seeing for ourselves. Your positive results are encouraging.

Thanks.

[simoon]

"Wanna be hipster" LOL 

Tune the suspension like a Linn. That makes a real difference. If it's not  bouncing straight, you'll get better performance in every area, once tuned. You have to adjust the springs from underneath. Each time you turn a spring you have to re-seat it cause it twists. It's a PIA but worth the effort. If you need more details let me know.
neo

Already did this.

You are correct, it is very worthwhile to spend the time.

[neobop]

I can't think of anything else specific to the IIX other than the usual mounting platform considerations. Sometimes replacing the feet with spikes helps with this type deck. I do that with all my decks. I'm starting to do some mods on plinth and base rigidity, especially on wood bases. This will be aluminum sheets under the plinth and braces inside the base.

Marc,
The suspension on these decks works a little differently. I don't want to hijack this thread. We can discuss it another time.
neo

[doug s.]

here's a tweak i did on my o-l rb250 and o-l silver taper arm that would work yust as well as on your linn arm - it will add lateral stability, and as it sets in the same plane as the pivot, won't effect anything else.  plasti-clay or blu-tack on the bearing holders, and lead weight outriggers (which are normally used to keep aquarium plants in gravel):

(and, fwiw, re: the rb250 counterweight mod, while i heartily recommend the steel end stub, which came w/my o-l-modded arm, i returned the offset counterweight i bought, as it totally messed up the tracking, so ymmv.)

doug s.

[simoon]

We ended up Dynamating the hell out of he inside of the TT.

Every flat surface has Dynamat, the arm board, the plinth, the sides...

Then we reset up the springs and leveled the table.

Well worth the time and effort. Quieter, more dynamic, better bass were the immediate improvements. 

Next up....some Herbies tone arm dampers?