***I truly am enthusiastic about hifi, components, the material sciences involved and like you rightly say, the pleasure in the pursuit of attaining an ideal... not simply "arriving"***
Actually, I lied...It would be so nice to..."just arrive" forget the journey. (i guess i'm a dumb romantic too) (smile) |
Just to clarify and in fairness to reviewers, reviews, designers and enthusiasts and maybe balance the scales a bit.
1.A Low priced system [ 2500-10000 used prices]of "bang for your buck components" put carefully together and that find a special synergy with each other can sound very good and be fun and realy and truly might make some "audiohphiles" truly content.
2.Many reviewers are genuinely enthusiastic about a product and are sincerely trying express the merits of a product and are just as honest as you and me.
3.It is in fact possible with the kinds of designers/technology and exotic materials available today to achieve startlingly real and satisfying music and deliver on the "hifi, Hi end promise" It is ultimately NOT all just marketing hype.
4. To get to 3 will cost you around 20,000 used and then your components still need to be carefully matched.
5. The innovative designs and exotic materials utilized in the "hi end of hi end" cannot be matched by mass produced stereo products.[but if poorly matched it might!]
6. The low to midfi hi end products can be matched by mass produced stereo products. [it can depend but its hit or miss]
7. I'm glad there are reviews and reviewers and want to read and hear more from them.
8. I am grateful to audio enthusiasts, exotic component designers and hifi shops[who are people oriented].
9. Many Low to midfi marketed products sold as "hi end", shouldn't be. It should be addressed as something like...maybe "low fi, hi end" so theres no confusion. The top end of hi end should only be called 'hi end' then newbie people wouldn't be upset or feel let down and the industry would have happier people and get more credibility amongst the non audiophile community.[which might help it go more mainstream?]
10. Many Hi end designers do in fact deserve the title Hi end designers.
11. You probably didnt need to wait for me to tell you all this but for those who are still unsure...
If any "demanding" newbie to hi end audio is reading this and is hoping for "amazing sound", i would say, you can have it! but look to the very top products, buy those! save yourself alot of time and frustration and based on THOSE products, decide if you like 'hifi' or not.
And that even then, to some degree the sound will have at least some quirks that make it less than real...... On another note...Sometimes i prefer recorded stereo music to live! I know this might be audiophile heresy but...sometimes because it is produced in a more controlled method, you can weed out alot of problems inherent with live music. Sometimes everything is arranged "spatially" better on recorded music, has a quieter backgrounds and artists try to put a "good take" down, so they repeat it til its a good one. And in some instances i find stereo's can put a euphonic spin on reality which is more pleasing than live? Its like a good rendition of "live". Its like the difference between watching all the rolls of film , of a movie before it goes to the editing/cutting room, both live and recorded each have their benefits of course, but sometimes i'd rather watch a well edited "movie" over a live unedited movie, if you know what i mean. Anyways...to get the real hifi goods get the good stuff if you can, if not understand the rest is just "ok" and has no resemblance to what really and truly is possible with "hi end" gear.
Have a nice day. |
I think it is difficult to predict the sonic outcome solely on the basis of the plinth material alone.
Here's why:
Because a stereo system is a matrix of ..."systems, within a system" each having their own contributing tone and resonance qualities and each are affected by the others in the context of the whole, therefore the variables and contingencies are incalculable, therefore, at best we can only navigate through this minefield by starting first with generalizations and then through experimentation, trial and error and then using our own ears can we finally arrive at a place that provides us with a sound that is pleasing to our subjective individual tastes.
A cartridge is a system, a tonearm is a system, a speaker is a system, a amp is a system, a room is a "system", a support platform is a system, cables are a system, tubes are a system, a turntable is a system, on and on....plus, each of those systems uses a different materials and in different shapes, sizes, thicknesses, with different mass,
Therefore in one persons system i can see slate complimenting the rest of their system better than panzerholz might or vice versa.
The other factor that is often overlooked is whether a plinth material is being properly "executed" together with the rest of the systems on the turntable. Just one example (and there are many), the panzerholz plinth is heavy and has great dampening qualities but is the armboard touching or not touching the panzerholz? are the armboard torque bolts too loose or too tight? which creates either a sink for noise or is perhaps trapping the noise in the tonearm and back to the sensitive stylus. Etc, etc, So, you can have a great plinth material but "drop the ball" in utilizing its inherent dampening qualities. So experimentation can have great value. Its hard work and tedious at times but that is where the magic can sometimes happen. We might be so close to striking the vein of gold but give up one day too early !
I would venture that a schroder arm (wood tube) might sound better on a 200lb slate plinth (soft stone) than it would on a panzerholz plinth, whereas a metal tubed (metal)tonearm better on the panzerholz plinth(wood).
So, wood and stone i predict will have better synergy than metal and stone.
Now to muliply the problem, what is the cartridge body material made from? (smiling) Are the speaker cabinets made from real walnut or mdf based? (smiling again) All these infinite factors effect the final tone and resolution of your sound.
In the end, i think all you can do is work with the best craftmanship in audio designs that are built with passion, mix their components as best as you can, listen and then steer/dial in that last bit of sound to get to a place that is musically satisfying. You do this, i think, by looking at the materials the components are made from, make an educated guess, then try it and listen if you've moved the sound in the direction it needs to go. No, i dont have all the answers , just more questions.
Panzerholz is a very good base ingredient to "cook" with but it is amongst a plethora of other good ingredients too, i think it just depends ultimately on... "how good the cook is". |
Lewn,
I think its just that i have a very high standard of what i expect a "hi end stereo" to do. For some of the prices some have shelled out here you would think their sound would be absolutely amazing, yet the casual listener probably would not be wowed or amazed. I have heard some very expensive systems and some ultra expensive systems and have been very underwhelmed. They all seem to suffer from some problem or deficiency that makes them seem rather mediocre. With that said, i think as you move to the more exotic materials, designers and components things are more within reach of being what i think they should be when i first began my foray into "hi end". Guys who are just entering and becoming members have no idea just how far they will have to go and how hard they will have to work, in listening , comparing, buying , selling just to start breaking the surface of "getting special results". Even then it will take some luck, some careful planning to get there. Alot of "midfi stuff" sold here...i think is not much better than a system sold at a london drugs store and it never goes under the guise of "hi end" and some of them sound pretty good.
I admit i am a little let down by "reviews", jaded by money lost on "midfi products" advertised as "hi end audio" but all i'm trying to do is say ...the road to bliss is a complicated one, a slow one and an expensive one. I believe this to be accurate, so i consider myself more of a realist than a pessimist. The flood of turnover products is my proof. I feel i am getting close to try hi end sound though...and i'm sure others are getting their too...by the way congrats on your new sp10mk3 with reed arm. That looks like it has lots of potential to be a sonic stunner! Nice! |
Lewn,
I think this better illustrates what i'm trying to get across.
Simon yorke s10 designer, a stereophile interview(taken from a review of one of his tables:
***I questioned Yorke about the laminate; he told me defiantly that "I have a box as big as this sofa at home full of materials I've tried for armboards. It sounds preposterous, but I've been driving along in my car and I've seen things lying by the side of the road and I've put on the brakes and jumped out of the car and grabbed this thing and put it back in the car and taken it home and machined an armboard out of it to see what would happen and listened to it. It's kind of obsessive, really. You can talk about machining and all the bullshit people talk aboutbearing tolerancesbut materials are awfully important. And if you change these materials you can make [two] turntables from the same set of drawings...[that have] completely different sonic signatures. I've got boxes worth of platters. I've made platters out of wood, stone, glassany number of things. The same with armboards." ****
Also as you say...****if we take that the job of a plinth is essentially the same no matter what it is made of, which is to be "neutral..."
But what is neutral? And how do we get it? How many different sonic attributes does a material need to be able to pull off RIGHT in order to portray NEUTRAL perfectly. (alot) I think you've made my point. We THINK to arrive at neutral is a SIMPLE endeavor, yet micheal fremers former reference table designer simon yorke is slamming his brakes on the highway searching for a great armboard material!!! Why do you think he didnt just order some slate or panzerholz?
Again as i said now multiply that by the materials used in other systems and theyre quantities/qualities AND how they will ultimately interact with a plethora of other items within a system, you realize the complexity of arriving at the finest level of playback is complicated.
Notice that simon must obviously do alot of experimenting and not all of it is objective or can be predicted or measured. I take that to mean that sound and how it will manifest itself is to some degree still a mystery. Remember also that he did his listening and designing in some degree IN ISOLATION (as do all/alot of designers,ie they use theyre own gear, cables, cartridge,(not yours) to fine tweak. This means that his results to a greater or lesser degree are biased toward his system not necessarilty ours , therefore results will vary to some degree, hence the complicatedness of it all.
Yes, we can and do make progress and we can feel safe that a slate or panzerholz plinth are good bets and a very good place to start but their not blanket, across the board answers or guarantees of anything (i think)(and i think maybe some think they ARE)...but for the finest of finest nuances to be brought out in a system, that last, little bit, you have to experiment with mats, cartridge bolt torques, footers, cables, cartridge shims, tube rolling, racks, different armboard materials, speaker placement, vibration control, room treatment and you kinda have to do it on your own and trust your ears.
I think what makes vinyl playback so full of potential and special over digital is the fact that vinyl playback is DEPENDENT on the mechanical vibrations of MATERIALS to mimick reality. |
Lewn,
As to your first paragraph. I'm not waiting for a scientific definition of perfection. I simply (calmly) am saying to help those who were like me, naive and gullible (believing the hype in marketing/reviews) that there was such a thing as a silver bullet component/components that will answer all your hifi problems/dreams. (including Albert porters table or the walker table or whatever)I say this last sentence as a direct response to the initial thread question. This message i guess is not to people like you but there are some out there who are very frustrated/irritated by the promises/lies propigated by salesman. Not all but some.
To answer the initial thread question i can say that the material panzerholz, of which i built an armboard which supplanted a mahogany armboard bettered it but there is still room for improvement and my results with the material might not be yours, as it will depend on which way your sound is already leaning but that its a good bet, but ultimately its your risk and there's no guarantees. You might spend alot of money time and effort but still end up wanting to sell it 6 months down the road. And is there anything wrong with that? No, not for those who didnt have any illusion's to begin with and has the patience, money, time and love for this pursuit, not to those who are prepared to make allowances for multiple "failures" disappointments, dashed hopes, when the perceived degree of advancement and its actually reality share no resemblance.
We've failed alot of naive, hopeful people by our greed and irresponsible claims.
I truly am enthusiastic about hifi, components, the material sciences involved and like you rightly say, the pleasure in the pursuit of attaining an ideal... not simply "arriving". I am impatient and my standards are probably too high.
I was so happy that simon yorke shared a bit of how he searches for ideal materials. I saw a bit of my myself in him, ie the passion, the excitement, the hopefulness, the desperation! (smile) I felt vindicated in that i always believed that results to some degree are unpredictable and that in the possession of every audio enthusiast is the power of experimentation! and to be able to dial in our sound not with supplanting our already great amp but by tweaking around it. We arent totally dependent or at the mercy of the "dealer" who thinks his products has the answer to my audio "problems".
There is ALOT of power, i think, in experimenting WITHIN our own systems , with OUR OWN hunches to yield very good results. How many different woods are there that i can build 1. a shim for between my cart and arm 2. to build an armboard with ? No how many different combinations can i get just out of those to parts? If i ad a third part, like maybe different feet, that just multiplies the number of combinations i can now make. Lets say there is 5 for each that would be like having a 3 dial lock with 5 numbers on each dial. As many combinations that are possible corresponds with how many different sounds qualities i can alter within the context of the rest of my system!!! Thats alot of possibilities! Now change armboard thicknesses, shim thickness and you've just added another 2 dials to your lock. This is what i am trying transfer to the idea of different plinth materials...(systems within systems, within systems)
Of course not everyone has that kind of time or passion, those are more likely to be the ones who get disappointed with the merry go round of components.
I guess each person will have to individually decide if all this is ultimately fun for them or not.
I'm staying here but on bad days i feel like selling it all and just getting an ipod with 10,000 songs, not obsessing over 1mm of vta or 1 /100 of a gram vtf! how one studio's sound compliments my set up while another fails it! (smiling) My perserverance/stubborness has helped me to ultimately have fun, learn and arrive very close to a sound that is close to impressing me. Things are sounding pretty good these days and i'm getting better at what i do, knowing how and where i can make sonic progress that brings meaningful results and pleasure to my life. But sometimes....its a jungle out there! beware the faint of heart and thin skinned! (smiling)
Appreciate you lewn! Thanks.
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The merits of using panzerholz as a plinth material because of its dampening properties has potential and should be explored among many other materials. It will come down NOT ONLY to the choice in materials but also to the "execution" of its implementation....your system biases, your personal taste biases/preferences, how much or how little is used [more isnt necessarily better, ie it is possible to damp one frequency too far, one not at all].
"On paper" it has good potential but in practice results may vary. This is what i theorize. I dont claim to know.
If dealers arent selling for profit what are they selling for? Are they donating to charity? or is panzerholz a worthy cause?
Perhpaps they believe in their product, would like to offer a good product and make a little money at the same time? Nothing wrong with that.
As i've stated ...my experience with panzerholz , in my situation was positive, i would say it was a step in the right direction. Did it fix every sonic fault in my vinyl playback? i dont think so...did it meet every single parameter necessary to complete the "perfect sonic envelope", I dont think so.
Am i loving the norah jones lp spinning on my record player with plain jane cld plinth ,with panzerholz armboard, breuer arm and allaerts cart?...Yes! very impressed! ...VERY impressed. If i changed nothing but only switched out the cld plinth for panzerholz plinth would it improve every parameter without the loss of any other? would it be an overall bettering of the sound? Honestly...I dont know...i cause i really believe that sound has to be "tuned".
You have to mix "cold" with "warm" in the proper proportions. Mix "analytical" with "syrupy"...
So...who can say that my birch ply/mdf doesnt beautifully compliment the cleaness of my breuer arm and panzerholz might be too much of a certain sonic attribute of which i already have enough of already from some other component?
"Neutral" has to be "cooked up" by listening, mixing and matching. I know my thinking might be a bit unorthodox but there is a degree of mystery to "good sound", WHERE.. you will find it , that is.
I am open to being way off ....and maybe a panzerholz plinth would in fact categorically, across the board, blow away the current perceived synergy i have with my current "ingredients" on my table and that in every hifi situation it is in fact the answer "categorically" and we all must abandon all other materials in favor of this one....but....
Ones mileage may very?
The best thing you can do....is....give it a shot. Then compare it against...slate or this or that and see if what you said about panzerholz after other comparisons still remains the same.
Will someone, someday sell, their panzerholz plinthed table for a table they preferred more? for sonic reasons? If yes, it doesn't mean anything, someone just needed to cook with different ingredients to get the sound they're looking for out of just their head and into their room.
When i did the panzerholz armboard "shoot out" i made sure to keep all parameters the same, except for armboard material utilized. I did this cause i like to be objective about the results otherwise i will forever wonder if it was in fact the material or some change in some other area in the system. [not knowing for sure would drive me a bit crazy]The panzerholz bettered the mahogany armboard in my situation. Its possible that i lost something but that i havent found it out yet. So far so good.
Logenn, Can you say that the only parameter that changed when you compared your panzerholz plinth to the regular plinth was in fact the plinth and only the plinth material? All other parameters remained equal? or was there a new arm? an new mat? , different interconnect? you moved the speakers around a bit? you tube rolled?
Thanks. |
Hi...
****Vertigo I believe Albert Porter commissions his plinths to be built by a high end furniture cabinet maker.
Shop time and work involved along with choice of materials puts per unit cost very high.
I'm confident Mr. Porter does not run a social program for the needy ; his starting prices are resonable.
The key here is in the design itself including the material.****
There is nothing like the experience of a skilled furniture cabinet maker over "backyard woodworkers". I can appreciate the beauty in a fine looking table. [ on a side note in this regard, i have often wondered how much influence a beautiful looking component has on our appreciation of its sound? that is when we are listening to something... if one piece is "prettier to look at" does it influence our perception of how good it sounds? I have a dutch friend who closes his eyes when he considers how good a system sounds or doesnt sound. At first i thought it a bit odd. Now on occasion i try it. I love the experience of a campfires glow in the darkness and i've often wondered if i love tubes and my sound...PARTLY because of the tone or kind of atmosphere they set when i listen to music. Somehow they're glow in a dimly it room makes a connection to norah jones's album "come away with me" more intimate, whereas if i listen to it in noon daylight it somehow doesnt hit me as much as in the evening, so i am exploring how much influence room lighting or the physical appearance of a piece can influence our biases on how something sounds[try listening to your system without the visual cues for fun and see what happens]....it is interesting that on a dimly lit room, with my 845b tubes glowing like a campfire, enjoying the beautiful cabernet stain of my lenco 78 that it all feels so wonderful and inviting but when i close my eyes to those beautiful things and cant soak in their beauty with my other sense, ie vision, i have sensed a bit of a loss in the experience of the music. This is interesting. Perhaps visual appeal plays a larger role than we know. Most of us audiophiles are men! and we are visual. Nothing like a beautiful girl all done up! Perhaps during the day there is more grid noise in the city and that is why i tend to enjoy music more in the evening OR perhaps its a combination of both less grid noise and a conducive ambient environment for connecting to the spirit of music easier.] So thumbs up to fine furniture making! How a component looks has always been in some degree important to me, not just its sound. My remark, which spawned your response, was only to say that not only is there passion behind building components but there is also a business side to it as well and consumers need to rememeber both those aspects when making a decision or when talking to a seller. Sellers sell because they would like to make a profit. I would recommend buying if the item has both a aesthetic appeal but more important...whether it has sonic virtues that will bring pleasure to the consumer. Everyone is looking out for themselves and people should only buy what is ultimately in their best interest.
********shop time and work involved along with choice of materials puts per unit cost very high.********
I will be blunt about this...forgive me...I really dont care. But with this qualifier...if it sounds amazing, then its worth it to me.
I see guys on audiogon selling 60,000 dollar tables for USED prices but own cheaper tables because they outperformed the more expensive one. Do i care that that 60000 designers costs are high? No. All i care about is the best table i can buy for my money. If the 60,000 dollar table sounds better than a slated lenco then i wish i could afford it but will have to live with the lenco. But if the slated lenco sounds better than the 60,000 dollar table well, too bad, i dont care how much it cost the designer, like the rest of us...i'm looking after me, right? I am only content to pay the designers overhead if and only if the product delivers the sonic goods, period. What do i care if his costs are high? If he has found a way to make a table that costs 1000 to build but it can sound better than a 60,000 dollar table then i would still be willing to pay for his ingenuity, even if his profits are huge! since he deserves it, because he created a wonderful table irregardless of his overhead! I will pay for sound but not for overhead. Thats how i look at it. I have a rough idea of what Alberts plinths sell for and i think relative to other tables out there and how panzerholz can make for a good table...his price seems very reasonable to me. I'm glad for his table and if anyone decides to purchase one i hope they will really enjoy it for the long haul.
Logenn certainly seems to be very happy with his results! I'm very happy for him. He said he was about to sell his previous stuff off...I can identify with that feeling! It is only in my 7th year ! as an audiophile that i feel i have arrived somewhere meaningful. Thats 6 years of varying degrees of frustration and partial joys. Its taken that long but i'm just glad that i'm here now.
Logenn, we'll never know...but i wonder how the triplanar with whatever cartridge you currently are enjoying with it would have sounded like on your regular plinth, with the new bearing and power supply THEN switched plinth materials ONLY. I'm not assuming the results, one way or the other but i just wonder.
On a side note...i know that to extract the best out of the schroders you have to really be a bit of an artisan with this arm. I know one audiogoner with alot of experience who said it has taken him a year to figure out how to set it so it can really shine and to really hear what it is capable of[i say this as one possibility as to why you were underwhelmed with your previous plinth material and therefore how much to attribut to the new plinth is debatable], but it must be used with a cart that is "very clean", "not warm" as the schroder already has that quality, not to mention what the choice of armboard and table materials is used in conjuction with that combo, to create a final overall tone and final sonic signature at the front end of things.
The triplanar i have read can be somewhat tricky but by comparison to the schroder it is easier to achieve success with it and has merits of its own apart from the schroder. What i am saying is...i think there are alot of things going on.... and getting to the bottom of it could be complicated, therefore results are to some degree inconclusive.
But whats coming out of the speakers!... is somewhat easier to recognize. ie We really like what is going on or we are ho hum about it or its really it bad! WE dont have to analyze too long for that. Its isolating the precise source of the "failure" point and trying to predict outcomes based upon components or their materials.....to acheive pleasant results that is the elusive beast. Thats why i think experimenting with different parameters and materials is very valuable, both for progress and for learning how small simple changes can make for profound changes in musical enjoyment. It really is elusive but when the planets align...wow...nice!
I am enjoying my zifandel 2011 made from grapes, which i accented the flavour with smoke oaked chips...Nice color...wonderful aroma and only 2 bucks for per 750ml yield.
My father who passed away june 15 was old school and never learned about additives to protect against microbacteria but all things considered, with a grade 4 education, he never had a wine spoil on him and he loved making wine, even though it was my mother who drank most of it! [smiling]
Have a good night. |
Actually what i meant to say was:
*****Schroder needs a cart that is "very clean", "not warm" as the schroder already has that quality****
Actually what i meant to say was:
Schroder needs a cart that is "very clean", "not warm" as the schroder already has a organic warm signature and too much might go too far to the warm side of neutral. |
*****Schroder needs a cart that is "very clean", "not warm" as the schroder already has that quality****
Actually what i meant to say was:
The Schroder arm needs a cart that is "very clean", "not warm" as the schroder already has a organic warm signature and too much might go too far to the warm side of neutral as a combo.
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