Your pods are dry. The table should not "shimmy". The pods are nothing more than a spring inside an aluminum cylinder. There's paddles attached to the spring. The whole thing is supposed to be full of silicone damping fluid. The idea is the spring isolates the table from movement and the fluid damps the spring. So you have the spring but not the damping. Its questionable whether the damping helps or not, you would have to add to find out. But for sure its gone.
Incidentally, when it comes time to ship the pods are removed, compressed, and they screw together with an o-ring that prevents the fluid leaking out. That was how after 10 years I discovered my fluid was all gone!
The Herron sits right at a price/performance point where there's only maybe one or two (if that) close in performance, and you are looking at into five figures to do significantly better. My Conqueror is a dozen years old. It replaced the Graham 2.2. Its not merely better, its in another league. Plus with OL the phono leads are integral so no money spent on interconnects. At this level that alone is worth a grand or more. Not to mention the headaches of finding the right one.
Tone arm mounting is simple. Most of the people convinced its all so hard have never actually done it. Once you do its like, D'oh! No big. I made a couple trial plinths before settling on the one I have now. Would not believe how much money people wind up spending simply because they are afraid to try.
With arms, as with turntables, its hard to go wrong and you pretty much get what you pay for in terms of sound quality. That's not all there is to it though. These things have to be set up and used, and some designs make that a whole lot harder or easier than others. I bought the Graham simply because it uses a removable armwand and comes with a jig that makes cartridge alignment super easy and precise. But all the extra connections are bad for sound quality, something I never realized until going to the Conqueror.
In general I think that arms that are made by tone arm companies like Origin Live tend to be way better than arms made by turntable companies like VPI. Likewise turntables made by turntable specialists like Kuzma tend to be better than VPI. Not to knock VPI, same goes for Pro-ject, Rega, anyone else making all in ones.
Not to knock any of those brands. They are what they are. They exist for a reason. Not everyone is capable of or wants to do the work of figuring out what to use and how to put it all together. Those who do can achieve truly outstanding results. If they do it right. Those who aren't into all that can still do quite well buying one of these other rigs. Its as important to understand yourself as the product you are buying.
Incidentally, when it comes time to ship the pods are removed, compressed, and they screw together with an o-ring that prevents the fluid leaking out. That was how after 10 years I discovered my fluid was all gone!
The Herron sits right at a price/performance point where there's only maybe one or two (if that) close in performance, and you are looking at into five figures to do significantly better. My Conqueror is a dozen years old. It replaced the Graham 2.2. Its not merely better, its in another league. Plus with OL the phono leads are integral so no money spent on interconnects. At this level that alone is worth a grand or more. Not to mention the headaches of finding the right one.
Tone arm mounting is simple. Most of the people convinced its all so hard have never actually done it. Once you do its like, D'oh! No big. I made a couple trial plinths before settling on the one I have now. Would not believe how much money people wind up spending simply because they are afraid to try.
With arms, as with turntables, its hard to go wrong and you pretty much get what you pay for in terms of sound quality. That's not all there is to it though. These things have to be set up and used, and some designs make that a whole lot harder or easier than others. I bought the Graham simply because it uses a removable armwand and comes with a jig that makes cartridge alignment super easy and precise. But all the extra connections are bad for sound quality, something I never realized until going to the Conqueror.
In general I think that arms that are made by tone arm companies like Origin Live tend to be way better than arms made by turntable companies like VPI. Likewise turntables made by turntable specialists like Kuzma tend to be better than VPI. Not to knock VPI, same goes for Pro-ject, Rega, anyone else making all in ones.
Not to knock any of those brands. They are what they are. They exist for a reason. Not everyone is capable of or wants to do the work of figuring out what to use and how to put it all together. Those who do can achieve truly outstanding results. If they do it right. Those who aren't into all that can still do quite well buying one of these other rigs. Its as important to understand yourself as the product you are buying.