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Foil damping tape as a tonearm tube wrap?

There has been a couple sporadic posts recently about using a product called 3M foil damping tape to wrap tonearm tubes. The tape is normally used in applications to reduce unwanted vibrations in the product to which the tape is attached. In the particular tonearm wrap applications, users claim a noticeable improvement in sonic qualities of vinyl playback. I created this thread to catalog impressions of others who have used this material, their particular tonearm wrap applications and their take away stories. Who has used this product for tonearm wraps? Thoughts?
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Showing 5 responses by geoffkait

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geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Was I being paged? Obviously what I meant was cryo is guaranteed whilst these other suggestions are a pig in a poke. šŸ·
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Cryoing the tonearm would certainly be a step in the right direction in terms of resonance control, stiffness and strength. As would ensuring that the tonearm wires are going in the right direction, obviously.
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geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Unless the turntable is properly isolated the cartridge, tonearm, platter etc. is subject to very low frequency seismic vibration. The tonearm, like the cartridge and platter, is susceptible to seismic vibration in the 10-12 Hz region, which is its design resonant frequency Fr. That is the physics involved. Even if heroic vibration isolation is employed, isolation is not perfect so it might be worthwhile to damp the tonearm, e.g., tape or oil bath, using oil of the correct viscosity, even if isolated. Itā€™s not rocket science. Well, maybe it is.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Iā€™m personally not a big fan of EAR damping productsl having had very mediocre results (I.e., poor) with their blue damping sheets šŸ¦‹ and blue footers šŸ¬ but I say, ā€œnever say neverā€ as I havenā€™t tried the EAR viscoelastic tape. The EAR stuff seems like it would be great for audio, not too hard, not too squishy. Oh, well.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
The trick with the Sumiko wrap was is was rather stretchy, so you stretch the tape as you wrap, achieving more compression to the tonearm than ordinary tape. It may have also been viscoelastic. You donā€™t have to wrap the entire length of the arm. I would give the 3M viscoelastic tape a shot.
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