[Wayner]

Just another note on my Technics saga. I have now found out that lifting the chassis ground leaves me with another level of quite. This bothers me to no end as there is an obvious ground loop that I haven't got a handle on yet. That is again this weekends project....drink beer, watch the snow, spin albums and thing about ground loops..................ummmmmmmmmmmm ground loops!

W

[Wayner]

Latest bastardization of my 'table includes new home made mat, Teflon tape on the tone arm and hockey puck footers.



The mat is made from my tooled mat using two pieces to re-placate the originals thickness. I put the larger "donut hole" in using a quart paint can as a template (4.25" dia.) and centered the opening using a scale and repeated adjustments, cut with a very sharp exacto knife. Spindle hole and label hole are very symmetric (for being a one-off) and the sound is incredible. Music comes from a totally black background. I have also kept the Faraday shield under the platter (using .008" thk stainless steel) and it does reduce magnet effect somewhat. Remember, you can't eliminate magnetic fields, just deflect them. I have also applied 1000 centistroke dow corning liquid silicone to the horizontal needle bearings.

I will be listening more over the weekend.

Wayner

[TheChairGuy]

Darn, that mat looks totally pro 

Haven't had much success with teflon tape on these type of arms....it tends to suck the living bejeezus outta' the music.  A few small contrained layer dots tend to work best.

A mat to very thoroughly damp the platter, which is an inherent weak link in direct drive machines as it's coupled directly to the motor, et al - always pays rich dividends.

You might want to hack a couple squash balls in half and replace the stock feet...they may or may not be better than stock ones.  Pucks are nice touch...you have a good selection of them in Minny 

What wood are pucks typically made out of?

John

[Wayner]

I tried a couple of dots first, and the arm didn't like that at all. So I put about a foot of tape on and there was bliss. Cymbals go crash real nice and the bass is zowie.

The pucks are made out of high density rubber. When you tap them, they make a thud sound, very energy absorbent.

I also have a puck with a 9/32 hole in it for a record clamp. I guess I'm pucking crazy. 

I really thought the liquid silicone on the needles really did the trick. For a $60 dollar tonearm, this thing is trick. Remember, the low price is from it being highly tooled. I wonder how many arms have been made? I'm sure the number has to be in the hundreds of thousands.

Waynerrr   

[TheChairGuy]

It's in the millions now - I think it's 2.5 million units - since 1979 introduction (that is the decks alone....replacement arms maybe another few hundred thousand units).  I think I read somewhere they Technics built 88,000 SL-1200's in 2006 alone.  Must be the world's best-selling deck left with those numbers.

That's some economy of scale 

Yeah, the wand itself is $60.00....but the headshell, counterweight, pillar assembly and VTA are all sold separately (as you would buy an aftermarket arm), escalating the cost well into the $200.00 range.  So, if it assuages anybody on that alone, it's not really a $60 arm as it's commonly referred to - it's a $200.00 arm 

Hi-density rubber sounds like an inspired choice - I thought they were wood - I'm-a-gonna' buy me some hockey pucks and try them out - thanks 

John

[Wayner]

Yeah, the pucks went up a wooping $.25 so now they're $1.25 each. I am going to start putting them under some of my components, like my all tube Van Alstine T8. I know the guy at the sports shop is going to start asking me what the hell I'm doin' with all the pucks.

W

[lcrim]

The price of a complete new tonearm is just below $80.00  They can be ordered online.
I would highly recommend the Isoplatmat, which is about $100  IIRC and does eliminate any platter ringing.  Wayner's DIY mat is very nice work.  I eventually ended up with the the Herbie's on top of the Isoplatmat and this combination has proved optimum in my setup. 
All attempts at isolation that I've tried including cones on butcher block have come out second best to the stock footers on a counter.  It seems curious to me that rubber hockey pucks work so well at that particular juncture yet the hard rubber stock Technics TT mat can be so easily improved upon. 
Also, for the record, I'm back to using my Benz Glider L2, with a much adjusted VTA, it likes to be slightly tail up, and I am thinking about a new preamp with slightly less gain to get a greater range of adjustment at the volume knob w/o sacrificing the image density that I have now.

[royphil345]

The "complete" new tonearm for $80.00 is only the wand portion. The rest of the arm assembly is sold separately. The difference between using rubber for the mat or under the feet is that you want as much energy as possible lost under the feet... A mat for the Technics must damp platter vibrations well, but how a mat damps and reflects sound waves of different frequencies is an issue... a mat that's too squishy can cause a loss of detail / energy at the pickup that may not be desirable, etc... Mats are more of a delicate balance compared to feet...

That mat looks awesome!!! I like how you did just a portion of the arm with teflon too. I've been meaning to try the exact same tweaks, though I'm not quite as handy and I never get around to deciding what to try for a mat. What's yours made out of? Is it a little firmer than the Technics mat for more detail?... or softer for a quieter background? It looks like it's less reflective...

I've noticed the arm height is usually adjusted around zero for most carts. I was thinking it might be possible to try something involving a slab of acrylic to sink vibrations in more mass and put a little more distance between the cartridge and any magnetism... maybe with a felt mat on top?... Would probably require a spindle hole on the bottom and a spindle extension on the top... or just a longer spindle... beyond my level of technology and who knows if it would be worth the trouble...

[Wayner]

First, the mat is my creation. I designed it, had the tooling made for it and have sold quite a few on icbay as a repplacement mat for the AR turntable as it has almost the original thickness. To protect the design, I won't say what material (I may officially start selling these), but I will say that it is a 50 durometer, inert to Ozone breakdown and cleans up with soap and water. It virtually reduces rumble to a null and void while retaining the bass and high frequency structure off the record. I have this mat on almost all of my tables (AR-XA's, REGA P3, VPI HW-19JR). The VPI is the most scary with the Van Alstine T8, as music just pops out of blackness. The mat is stiff enough to support the record, but has internal structure that will kill vibrations. It is also soft to the touch and won't harm the record surface. It does like to pick-up static if you use a Zerostat gun with the record on it, so I zap my records off of the table.

I would say the hockey pucks are a marginal tweak, but I'm keeping them there for the time being. The same with the Teflon tape. I know in my head that damping the arm (a slight amount) is a good thing, but I probably need to take it off soon to find out what it's doing. I'm not very fast to react to tweaks as sometimes the first day, they sound great and the next day they sound like crap. The mat is definitely a keeper over the stock mat and that is staying put.

Wayner

[royphil345]

Ahhh.... Sorry... I didn't realize I was asking for a trade secret.

You'll probably end up selling me one of those jobs eventually... Looks great!!!

[Wayner]

Now it is confession time. I need a priest.

I made a pair of interconnects that have transformed my system. You all know I love AVA and this is a sore topic with you know who.....but.....I needed another pair of cables, in a hurry. So I had some wire. The RCA jacks are from Radio Crap, the ground wire is 16 awg magnet wire and the carrier is 22 awg solid copper with teflon insulator, the pair is twisted together with about 4 twistes per inch. I can't stand to listen to any other IC....period. I think the solid wire does it. My theroy is that multistrand causes a blurred image because of skin effect and varying impurities within the copper conductor. The cymbals in any recorded music sound awesome. Afterall, almost all wiring inside of equipment is solid. So that's my confession. The only place they seem to have a major affect is between the amp and pre-amp. No other cables are required.



It could also be my new Andy Warhol rug............................ aa

[Wayner]

Ah......time has gone backwards. Yesterday was probably best forgotten. Yes, I'm back........I can't leave you guys alone, you might out tweak me.

During my fuming process yesterday, and idea actually can into my head. Static electricity is an evil enemy for vinyl but what if we could use this force to our advantage? At work, we employ a device called a static chuck. We use it to hold onto tiny parts while we measure and inspect them. What would happen if the bottom of the cartridge had a statically charged part on it that would make it want to attach to the record surface, of course not overcoming the cantilever. We would have tracking Nirvana.

What material would be good for holding or collecting a charge? I want to continue bastardizing the Technics.

Wayner

[ohenry]

The only thing that comes to mind is static cling decals that people put on car body work and windows.  I'm not sure if a small piece glued to the bottom of your cart with the "cling" side facing the record would exert enough force to make a difference.  You may be able to find an inexpensive decal on epay to experiment with.

[richidoo]

Thank God! oops, no religion...   sorry.  

I remember in freshman chemistry class the professor talking about the mechanical force generated by static charge on two adjacent plates. It can be enormous and very quickly modulated. At the time I was daydreaming during class about inventing perpetual motion machines to the great detriment of my grades, but that lecture sure stood out! It would make a great prime mover, but where to find the free DC? haha

That is a great idea Wayner - practical? I dunno, might be! You need to isolate the vinyl from ground so it can hold a charge, preferably the opposite of what attracts dust maybe even charge it actively through the mat. Then charge the attractor plate affixed under the cart with the opposite charge.  It will be very close to the disk, so not much charge is needed. I don't remember that much from chemistry class to compute the force generated or voltage needed. Maybe depends on the plate material? At least we know vinyl will hold a charge! Nylon (as in socks  ) is also very good and easily machined, available in thin sheets.

You would reduce your mechanical tracking force and bring it back up to nominal with variable electrostatic charge. Calibrate with a stylus scale like normal.

Applying a constant charge will not gain you anything. Gravity has constant force over unlimited range of motion but electrostatic attraction varies greatly over small displacement, so net loss in tracking force when the cart rises above nominal height, just when you need more.

So you need a variable power source with feedback to add more charge when the cartridge rises and less when it falls to maintain a force that is constant at all heights, just like gravity, except better than gravity because it will be dynamic force capable of maintaining the cart at a perfect height above the record regardless of warps, transients, etc. You could call it "Iron grip tracking enhancer" haha

You will need a laser or something to measure the charge gap to control the height. 2 lasers, one pointed down at LP and the other to top of cart shell can measure the gap so your controller can modulate current to the charged plate to maintain perfect height at all times. Measurement lasers are available from process control companies as are programmable controllers, or roll your own with a PIC or stamp. But it will need to be pretty fast to control a cannon blast transient. 10kHz sampling rate should be plenty, probably too much, because only low freq transients are big enough to need to be actively controlled.

You might actually ditch the lasers and digital and just monitor the signal. When output voltage rises, you turn up the suction. Not sure how that would sound, since cartridges are designed to have freedom in Z axis. Worth a try. I know someone who can design an analog controller with PS fast regulator to make the signal monitoring variety. Not sure about the physics of how much voltage, plate material, are needed, but that could be determined easily with some off TT experiments.

Nice one Wayner! We gotta get you stoked up more often!   Get your creative juices flowing! haha
Rich

[Russell Dawkins]

What would happen if the bottom of the cartridge had a statically charged part on it that would make it want to attach to the record surface, of course not overcoming the cantilever. We would have tracking Nirvana.
Wayner

I don't see what the advantage would be of achieving tracking force in this manner rather than with weight and balance. My impression is that the static attraction between the cartridge and disc surface is one of the gremlins that need to be dealt with (by neutralizing the charge with a static gun, for example), not something to actively seek.

If the record had a warp in it, the tracking force would vary in a way opposite to what would be wanted, wouldn't it? When the disc surface rose, the cartridge body would get closer to the record surface, increasing the attraction and exaggerating the vertical stylus movement as a response, seems to me.

[TheChairGuy]

Ersamat: http://www.ttvj.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&manufacturers_id=58&products_id=420&zenid=e8bb5a16a1b777f197f9e112c7799106

The carbon fibres should be effective at removing static cling, as well.

I made my own homebrew version (using two pices of 8 x 10" ERS clothe) and found zero benefit in using this.  I even copper taped/foiled the bottom to provide for additional EMI protection for additional benefit.

Not that this is definitive at all, but fixes are out there already...if there is fixing needed whatsoever.

Using a multi-step wet process (alcohol free solution from LAT International called Kleer-Disc, LAST Power Cleaner and LAST Record Preservative) with a vacuum cleaning machine I have no detectable static issues - ie., there is no cling to the record now.

The LAT stuff is cheap, too - just add your own distilled water....http://www.latinternational.com/index.php/product/kleer-disk.html

John

[bacobits1]

That mat looks like the old Disc Washer mat of years past.
I'm old, I had one.

Den