There are always compromises - you are right, air is a fluid and is surely compressible. Designers choose the adequate surface area and proper pressure and flow to optimize the bearing for their sonic priorities, but can not operate miracles.
Are we entering the age of the Heaviest is "Best" turntable? Heavy = Musical?
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There are always compromises - you are right, air is a fluid and is surely compressible. Designers choose the adequate surface area and proper pressure and flow to optimize the bearing for their sonic priorities, but can not operate miracles.
Is the concept also valid with spinning CDs? Of course it is; mass reduces vibrations.
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Can you direct me to any sites which would have measured data on softened bass using an air bearing? I'm still collecting information about them.
Thanks,
and I'll go ahead and ask the opinions on magnetic suspensions too.
well......I owned a Rockport System III Sirius for 8 years. and it had possibly the best of air bearing tone arms. during the last 4 years I owned it I had 4 other turntables in the same room with 6 or 7 different arms and a few different phono stages. I was constantly switching cartridges and arms and so came to realize cause and effect.
and my perception of softened bass was as I described. the first tone arms I had were not even competitive with the arm on the Rockport in any way......while certainly being fine tone arms. then i moved on to better tone arms and i started to notice where the solid bearing arms had more bass impact and did bass differently than the air bearing arm.
then a local friend started designing his own tone arm and i was privileged for him to frequently use my room as a test place. so i observed his research step by step and started to understand what was doing what as he experimented with different approaches and materials. at a point in that process i decided that the Rockport was limited on the upside by it's wonderful tone arm (as it was a closed system) and sold the Rockport. my friend continued to develop tone arms and i use 2 of them today and am very happy with them.
through my time with the Rockport i had studied a bit about why the air bearing in the Rockport had advantages over other air bearing approaches as it was stiffer........not as sloppy as others. I wish i could remember some of the terms used to describe it's advantages I'm now trying to recall.....i think "high pressure-low flow" was significant. i know that in designing the Rockport that Andy Payor looked very closely at air bearings used in industrial applications and went to quite a huge effort to acquire the most effective approach. i might recommend reading this review of the Rockport System III Sirius turntable and tone arm from August 2000, especially page 2 and 3 including the footnotes that describe the approach much better than i could.
my opinion about softened bass with an air bearing is related to observation at the top of the tone arm food chain.
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The Rockport Turntable came with an air isolation top and stand, made by TMC- Series Micro-G. Top measured 18"x 24" . I am running the same stand on my Basis Debut turntable/ Super Arm 9. My Top is 24"x 24" , 2" inches thick. Top weight is 350 Lbs. We guess about 15db worth of isolation gained using this stand. The performance spec's on my stand are better than the Rockport, because of size and weight.
no doubt that the air bladder isolation of the now 20+ year old Rockport Sirius III design is no longer the state of the art in isolation. we now have active isolation devices which are quite a bit better and do not rely on mass loading. these active devices can 'stop' and don't settle and overshoot like all passive isolation devices must and are much stiffer with lower resonance.
how does mass potentially affect the ultimate ideal turntable isolation?.........compared to how mass affects the ultimate ideal platter and speed?
where do heavier turntables have an advantage? or is it that simple?
Most other stands used for turntables have Zero isolation fitted with heavy mass tops, attached side panels. These panels pickup air born sound, and transmit lots of extra unwanted vibration back to the turntable. State of the Art isolation has a cost of over 10K. My TMC Micro G Table only cost was less than 1K. I'm very happy with it's performance for the money, and much better than the vibraplane model .
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Heavy is just heavy, not best. There are multiple things that go into making a turntable good. I don't care how heavy a table is, that will not save a tonearm and cart from airborne vibrations if placed in the room with speakers. Also, it will not help with speed accuracy/consistency.
Resonance is only half the story.
A big big lump of metal being so close to cartridge/cabling/audio circuits does something to them.
Adds extra bass thump.
Extra zing to the top end.
There is no need to even have physical contact.
Any metal that can conduct electricity can potentially alter the magnetic field passing through cartridge/cable/audio circuits.
The effect reduces with distance of course.
A big big lump of metal being so close to cartridge/cabling/audio circuits does something to them.
Adds extra bass thump.
Extra zing to the top end.
There is no need to even have physical contact.
Any metal that can conduct electricity can potentially alter the magnetic field passing through cartridge/cable/audio circuits.
The effect reduces with distance of course.
Turntables are vibration detectors. All of that weighty mass lends a gravitas to the sound that can be quite pleasing in the bass and lower midrange. Coloration? Probably so, but as an electromechanical transduction platform, the whole thing is a coloration, may as well have pleasant ones.
Tbh Mike, couldn't your 180 degrees return to pivoted tone arms and your trumpeting them as now superior to air arms in solidity of bass also apply to the newest, baddest belt drive tts now having the performance edge over DDs like your NVS and eg GP Monaco etc etc?
Belt drives at the top echelon like Air Force and Kronos surely must be, like the best modern pivoted arms, superior to non belt drives
This comment is from an owner of a rim drive tt and an air bearing arm, in no hurry to switch out either
Belt drives at the top echelon like Air Force and Kronos surely must be, like the best modern pivoted arms, superior to non belt drives
This comment is from an owner of a rim drive tt and an air bearing arm, in no hurry to switch out either
Spirit, you are quite misinformed in your thinking that "the newest, baddest belt drive tts now having the performance edge over DDs". They simply do not.
You also state with certainty that "Belt drives at the top echelon like Air Force and Kronos surely must be, like the best modern pivoted arms, superior to non belt drives". Do you personally feel that way? How can you justify a statement like that? Just repeating what a rim drove owner says as if it were the gospel is not really offering up anything of substance.
There are some belt drives that you might prefer to some direct drives and vise-a-versa, but these statements you are making are reckless and show how uninformed and inexperienced you are. I am not trying to berate you, only to ask you to be more responsible with your statements.
THIS! I went from a Nottingham Horizon all-steel plinth weighing 20lbs to my Oracle Paris which weighs like a feather in comparison.
Jonathan, I'm a convert away from belt drive to idler/rim, no need to convince me of the benefits of losing that rubber band
Similarly I'm a convert to air arms, I can see/hear very much why Mike was convinced by the concept
My point was not to convince one way or the other, but to say that Mike feels modern pivoted arms now have the engineering edge where air arms once had, maybe there is now a parallel where current SOTA belt drives have made the same strides to have the edge over non belt drives
So I was advancing a postulation, not a statement of fact
Like Mike I prefer non belt drives, but unlike him I've stuck with air arms
I'm fairly informed and experienced by the way
Similarly I'm a convert to air arms, I can see/hear very much why Mike was convinced by the concept
My point was not to convince one way or the other, but to say that Mike feels modern pivoted arms now have the engineering edge where air arms once had, maybe there is now a parallel where current SOTA belt drives have made the same strides to have the edge over non belt drives
So I was advancing a postulation, not a statement of fact
Like Mike I prefer non belt drives, but unlike him I've stuck with air arms
I'm fairly informed and experienced by the way
I disagree. I think what Mike was saying was that the Durand tonearms that he now uses have the advantage over the Rockport tonearm in the area of bass. I would venture to guess if you asked Mike which, was better, or he preferred on an entire side of a record when it came to soundstage and imaging, the Rockport tonearm might be the slight winner due to it's geometry.
I think the problem is more the blanket statement of one technology over another. Now, if I were to generalize, I personally feel direct drive properly implemented is quite superior to properly implemented belt drive.
I really did not intend to offend you with my statement and I certainly apologize if it did in any way.
No sweat Jonathan
My air arm gives me the sort of start-stop bass that just entrances me, and is one of the factors that has enabled me to converge my analog and digital presentations
But I'm sure I'll reinvestigate pivoted arms, the Kuzma 14" 4Point really intrigues, either on a Kuzma tt (Stabi M or dc XL), or a GP Monaco 1.5 or 2.0, maybe Kronos Pro
My air arm gives me the sort of start-stop bass that just entrances me, and is one of the factors that has enabled me to converge my analog and digital presentations
But I'm sure I'll reinvestigate pivoted arms, the Kuzma 14" 4Point really intrigues, either on a Kuzma tt (Stabi M or dc XL), or a GP Monaco 1.5 or 2.0, maybe Kronos Pro
let's separate arms and tt's and I will respond.
regarding tone arms; after my experiences I'd say that the best pivoted tone arms I've heard do most things better than the best linear tracker I've heard. specifically if we talk about the Rockport Sirius III linear tracker there is no doubt that as a 'system' the whole package did space and authority in a special way, part of which was the linear tracker. but since you cannot separate the arm from the 'system' I am left to offer opinions on what caused what.
in terms of detail and overall musical flow, and specifically bass articulation and impact, the best pivoted arms surpassed the linear tracker sitting next to them. in terms of space it was slightly toward the linear tracker. 9 months after I sold the Rockport, I purchased the Herzan active isolation. when that was added to my turntable set-up with the pivoted tone arm, possibly it equaled the space rendition from the Rockport system. but as it was then gone that is an educated guess.
I do believe that a linear tracker inherently does space better than a pivoted arm due to it's potentially perfect alignment. but exactly how that plays out in real life I only have my imperfect experience to say.
as far as turntables and drive systems, so far I slightly prefer direct drive overall to what I've heard. but I've not spent real quality time with the top belt drives, and maybe I even prefer an uber idler such as the Saskia to the best belt drives. but they are all so good at the top of the heap that it would not surprise me with any outcome if I could have all these best examples to live with for awhile. so no strong tt drive dogma from me at this point. are ddk's vintage thread and belt drive 'heavyweights' superior to others? don't know. I'm skeptical but open eared and open minded.
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