Spacedeck / Spacearm Setup

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jcoat007

Spacedeck / Spacearm Setup
« on: 28 Jan 2005, 03:36 pm »
I have a Nottingham Spacedeck / Spacearm combo. Here is my problem:
According the Hi-Fi Test Record, I have a resonance at 15hz on the lateral test and 18hz on the vertical test. The 18hz resonance causes my whole room to shake and shudder which I experience when playing music and turn up the volume to a decent level. According to the test record I am supposed to adjust the damping of the arm to adjust for this. I am not sure what that means.

I have messed with the set screw above the pivot, and in fact took that whole mess apart last night to see what was in there. I put it back together, but cannot figure out how loose or tight that screw is supposed to be. However, it doesn't seem to matter how loose or tight that screw is as the resonance problem is the same.

Please help if you have any answers for me.

Thanks

Steve

Tonto Yoder

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Spacedeck / Spacearm Setup
« Reply #1 on: 28 Jan 2005, 04:13 pm »
Steve,
my official answer is "I don't know." I'm confident this answer will hold up in court should your tonearm explode.

My half-wild guess:  some arms have damping troughs that are filled with silicone and those arms can be adjusted by changing the amount of silicone in the trough. I checked the ASL site for info on the Spacearm, and Nottingham's Tom Fletcher was quite proud that his arm DIDN'T use silicone damping, but it was unclear just how damping would be adjusted with his non-silicone system.  His system seems to rely on stabilizer bars for his unipivot design, but again I can't tell how damping is adjustable.

I too have a Spacedeck, but with a Rega arm and a different cartridge probably.  I HAVE had trouble with resonance feeding back into the cart from the speakers and "solved" this by physically moving the TT. The TT must have been sitting in a bass node or something where the arm/cart resonance was especially excited (but my resonance was much lower than yours).  This is not really a solution, but it's just avoiding the problem.

Since the resonance of the arm/cart is dependent on the cartridge used, could you swap carts and see how the resonance changes??  Again, not a good solution, but maybe better than your situation now. Also, a tonearm's resonance can be changed by wrapping the arm with something like a Sumiko analogue survival kit or Atma-Sphere's equivalent (you could try Teflon tape too). This should CHANGE the resonance, but not necessarily make the situation better.

Sorry that I haven't come up with a better answer, but it's the best I can offer.

meby

Spacedeck / Spacearm Setup
« Reply #2 on: 28 Jan 2005, 04:54 pm »
I hope you did not adjust the screw above the Pivot as the manual for the spacearm says to never adjust that screw along with the screws on the platter :nono: .  I have a spacearm and spacedeck combo and had some issues with the HI-FI test album also and have subsequently been told by many not to put too much faith in the album.  You can private e-mail me and I can tell you how I set pivot to spindle distance and all other pertinent settings as unfortunately the designer of the system finds that publishing specs is not necessary. This is the main issue I have with My Nottingham the pain in the ass it is to get any information on the correct setup.