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New member Username: RockettSantee, CA United States Post Number: 3 Registered: Nov-05 | I have seen photos of a DIY cartridge damper in the gallery at a site called VinylEngine. It was made to insert a dead material (in this case it looks like foam board) between the cartridge and tonearm. Has anyone else tried this and found any positve results? |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 8722 Registered: May-04 | Damping devices such as this are usually not very successful. First, they eliminate the tight bond between the cartridge and the headshell/tonearm. Second, they add mass at the tip of the tonearm's cartridge end. This is the worst place to add any additional mass. Third, they will change the VTA of the stylus unless you can compensate for the additional height by adjusting the height of the tonearm. Why do you want to "damp" the cartridge? That's the job of the cartridge body and the tonearm. |
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New member Username: RockettSantee, CA United States Post Number: 4 Registered: Nov-05 | As some of you may know from my prior posting of the ELAC LAB60 I bought on ebay (you can take a look at it with the link below).: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem%26item%3D9736674513%26&sspagename= STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT%26 I am trying to get back into my old viynl collection. But trying to survive in California means I have a very tight budget after gas and housing are taken care of. My interest is to explore ANY way possible to get the most out of this very vintage turntable as an inexpensive DIY project. I will be posting more info on the internals of the LAB60 and some images of the guts shortly. When I saw a picture of a DIY cartridge damper included on the VinylEngine.com gallery with a bunch of VERY esoteric, Very High-end gear, I thought it might be a worthwhile idea. As mentioned, adjusting the tonearm hight to correct VTA is neccessary and sounds easy enough. But what Jan Vigne is also saying about the cartridge/tonearm bond and added mass at the end of the arm makes total sense. I don't see any way around those problems or how to possibly compensate for their detrimental effects. Looking at the photos on the link provided above, has anyone got any solid ideas on how to upgrade this turntable in an inexpensive manner? I'm fairly mechanical minded and up for some sweat equity. I just read a great piece on Mr. Merrill and what he did with AR decks to improve them. I am hoping it might be possible to explore some of the same solutions on a DIY basis with this deck. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 8724 Registered: May-04 | As far as I can tell, this is a version of an old Dual 10 series table. There are no provisions for adjusting arm height. You would be, in my opinion, foolish to insert some piece of foam which will change the VTA so severaly that the arm will mistrack and possibly skip on a slightly warped record. Also, with the headshell arrangement of this table trying to damp the cartridge is hardly a worthwhile adventure. There is plenty of loss in the headshell/tonearm combination. |
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Silver Member Username: RavbainsMelbourneAustralia Post Number: 121 Registered: Mar-06 | Hi, interesting post, I don't know about DIY devices, but I have noticed in the print magazines that the cartridge damping device by "The Cartridge Man" seems to be getting glowing reviews all around, both in print and on online review sites. I was going to post a 16kb jpeg, of a very pretty DPS turntable with a modified RB250 arm, and the aforementioned device used with a AT33 Prestige moving coil cartridge. But something seems to be broken, since the image is 400x300 and only 16kb, but I get an error saying the image size exceeds of the allowed maximum of "-1 Kb"!!!!! ciao Rav |
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Silver Member Username: RavbainsMelbourneAustralia Post Number: 122 Registered: Mar-06 | Steve, I like the use of the phrase 'sweat equity', that's a new one on me, and sounds like a good way to get good sound as opposed to just buying the latest and greatest off the shelf for big bucks. I am not qualified to provide any technical comments on these cartridge dampers, other than to say, I did note the very glowing reviews for the device I mentioned earlier. -cheers Rav |
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Silver Member Username: RavbainsMelbourneAustralia Post Number: 134 Registered: Mar-06 | Hi folks, any ideas why I cannot post any jpeg images? I wanted to post an image of the dps table, with the TCMI cartridge damper device. I read a review of this device, and the reviewer said it confounds all norms that he is aware of, yet seems to work very well indeed. It was reviewed on a Mitchell Gyro, with both a Rega and a SME-IV tonearm. I think the admin may have disabled any images in posts, because we had 'people' posting obscene images in the forum. |
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Gold Member Username: NuckPost Number: 3127 Registered: Dec-04 | Thats correct, Ravi. And without monitors to quickly remove the trash, the only alternative is to disallow a useful part of the forum. |