Springs under turntable

On damping and cost - If you are using Nobsound springs and you flick the individual springs with your fingernail and they ring, wrap one turn of PTFE tape around the full circle. Tight enough to damp but loose enough not to deform. It may not be as good as Townshend (which I've not tested) but it will be $000 less expensive.

After trying a tremendous number of things I had settled on BDR and was using Shelf, Round Things and Cones under everything. This went on for a good 30 years. Until around 2 years ago when I was persuaded to try spring isolation. 

Ordinary springs worked so much better and cost so much less it was hard to believe. Plain springs are cheapest and would be the way to go, except for how hard it is to find them in the right size dimensions and weight ratings for each component.

So I decided to try Nobsound, and quickly found they are equivalent to a single spring only with the added advantage of adjustability. 

Because of all these various factors, at one point my whole system was on springs, with Moabs and some of the subs on individual springs, and the rest of the subs and all other components - amp, phono stage, turntable - on Nobsound.

With Nobsound it is absolutely crucial to adjust the number of springs per footer by listening. If this is not done it is very easy to think they make the sound bloated (too few springs) or thin (too many) and I have seen people return them disappointed due to not doing this. 

That said, all the Nobsound and other springs have been sold or given away to friends as I have upgraded to Townshend Pods, as they are on a completely higher level. There are still a few plain springs- under the granite under my amp, the step down transformer, and conditioner. Not much else will work in these odd locations. 

The reason for trying Pods is an interesting story. With everything isolated and a DBA with incredible deep bass I began noticing intermittent problems with a very low rumble. I was at first thinking my turntable bearing was going bad after 20+ years. It even showed some marks, that might have been it. But polishing and refinishing, nada. Same problem.

Gradually dawned on me isolating the system on springs might have resulted in a resonance at this frequency. Testing showed sure enough, replace one Nobsound spring with a Cone, no more rumble. So it was resonance after all.

Pods are damped. John Hannant assured me no one had ever had anything like this with Pods. I gave them a shot, and not only eliminated the rumble but got a major across the board sonic improvement. One thing led to another and so today no more Nobsound. But they are totally the best thing for the money I have ever tried. 

Suggest combining your springs with 3 cups and balls arranged in a equilateral triangle for even better seismic isolation.

Yes. I use them under my turntable, amps, and preamp. I had used metal spikes under my amps and switched to the Nobsound springs. I wasn’t expecting much. I even thought they might not work. They did improve the sound stage. I guess there were some microphonics I wasn’t aware of before the springs. I placed them under my turntable and there seemed to be some slight improvement. I didn’t notice any changes with my preamp. I’ve left them all in place. No reason to remove them.  

Anyone else using Nobsound springs under their turntables, amps and speakers?

My comment from a few weeks back:

My turntable and monoblocs are on springs. When I added them to the phono-preamp, I lost bass response. Frequency response tilted up in the mids. No resonant drone or rumble. Replaced with metal cones and all returned to normal.

I revisited this. I was using leftover loose springs for the above. I’ve since received another set of Nobsound springs; this time with no pads stuck on. Test 4 footers under the phono amp. 1 spring per footer. Added brass weights to counter the heavy transformers on one side.. Awesome! Cones gone. Danny Thompson bass is in the room.

@fleschler ,

Did you get the buckwheat pillow idea from Tom Port?

I chose the easy way out for my full size, 185 lb. speakers using spikes.  I have a custom listening room with 12" thick, steel rebar reinforced, 3000 lb psi poured slab.  At least no vibrations are going from the floor up, possibly only the speaker itself vibrates.  I like Townsend platforms and springs, possibly for my next speaker.

I use the Townsend Seismic Sink (bladder) for two decades under a VPI TNT VI+ turntable.  Without it, I would have junked the table as it has poor vibration control with those fancy feet.  

For the rest of my equipment, I use various versions of Stillpoints (ultra-minis, SS) and they work great after testing out a dozen others (some were equally good, most worse, none better).  I also use a buckwheat pillow under an EAR 324 phono preamp and CD recording/editing machine (better than anything else, inelegant and very inexpensive).  The buckwheat pillow is rather good overall; however, I wouldn't use it near my tube equipment (heat).  

@mitch2 , you are exactly correct. Low bass pushes the suspension into it's nonlinear zone. Then there is doppler distortion on top. 
If you have at least two subwoofers of high quality you can push the high pass filter up as high as 150 Hz. Imagine doing that to K horns. JEEZ!

I just fixed my brother in law’s turntable with the same issue, but the rubber on his had disintegrated. I found these https://www.mnpctech.com/collections/turntable-lsolation-feet and installed them without any issues.

@mijostyn 

For people whose woofer driver carries a substantial amount of the midrange a higher crossover is a large advantage lowering distortion in the midrange. This is typical of two way speakers.

To achieve the reduction in distortion you described would require the main speakers to be crossed over above the low bass frequencies, using something like a high-pass filter, correct?  The benefit occurs by allowing the low frequency driver (especially in a two-way) to mostly operate within its optimal range of excursion without being required to try and reproduce both midrange and lower bass frequencies.  

@Derek, that is the right way to set them up as dedicated right and left channels. What crossover point are you using ? You do no want to go too high. Some harmonics coming from bass instruments are up in the mid range. Certain sounds like strings tapping the fretboard may be up in the treble. Bass instruments are usually mix towards the center so both channels are operative. You can go mono with high crossover points because you will start messing with the image to some degree. Mono is not a problem with crossover points below 80 Hz as we all know that localization is difficult below 80 Hz. The sub also do not need to be arranged symmetrically around the satellites although to me asymmetry is visually disturbing. (there's that silly brain again). For people whose woofer driver carries a substantial amount of the midrange a higher crossover is a large advantage lowering distortion in the midrange. This is typical of two way speakers. Putting subwoofers under LS3 5A's is quite the experience. With your eyes closed you would swear it was a much larger system. You open your eyes and see those little things and you start looking for the other speakers. 

@mitch2  thanks for posting Townshend link, I use them with Cube speakers and imo they improve clarity.

I came across this which may be of interest as well

https://youtu.be/5ihzvD3urc4

Mijostyn's sub array worked for me (I don't have nearly the quality of subs that mijostyn has) primarily because of my room set up did not accomodate sub placements throughout the room. (Thanks mijostyn). I also cross pretty high based on the simple premise that I wanted a speaker (sub) to "take" the "whole" instrument. A tweak that might work for those using an array is sending left channel signals to the left side subs of the array and right to the right. On many recordings, it's clear, by hearing and feel, that that double bass is clearly on the left of center. YMMV.

Your tympanic membrane moves immediately in conjunction with the pressure front created by whatever frequency of sound you care to talk about including bass. This movement occurs immediately and does not wait for a full wavelength to pass. But, it does take a period of time before the sound is registered and interpreted by the cerebral cortex. This probably occurs at the same time for all frequencies. Now, in deep bass it becomes not only hearing but feeling that are involve in assessing the sound. At some point it becomes only feeling if the volume is loud enough to register at all. 
The job of the enclosure is to isolate the woofer's rear from it's front waveforms so they do not cancel and to hold the woofer rigidly in space. Any movement of the woofer distorts the waveform. If the enclosure is sufficiently heavy and stiff it does not matter what it rests on. Unfortunately, that is a very difficult goal to reach so it is always best to anchor the subwoofer to a large immovable object like your house. 
The way I use my subwoofers is significantly different than say millercarbon. I cross over to them much higher at 125 Hz. This is up into the range that can be located. So my subs have to be arranged around the satellites in a symmetrical pattern to maintain a proper image. 
I also have to duplicate the radiation pattern of a line source so that the subs can keep up with the satellites as distance away from the speakers increases. It is certainly true that a bass instrument's higher frequencies and harmonics locate the instrument. The fundamental does not even have to be there. What goes AWOL is the sensation. I can make an EQ preset that chops everything under 40 Hz. Switching back and forth between the normal curve and the 40 Hz chop will not change what you here so much but all the sensation you get being at a live concert will disappear, gone. Those frequencies under 40 Hz are what makes music breath. Unfortunately, it is so easy to corrupt that end of the spectrum with room problems, phase inconsistencies, poor enclosure design and execution, and under powered amplifiers.  But, when you get it right it is a beautiful thing.

Spikes vs. Springs
They are obviously selling something but bring up some interesting observations.

https//youtu.be/dW9-r83IvhI

MC, You wrote, "Audio is full of complex concepts and this is a big one: human beings DO NOT hear all frequencies the same."  Yes, that's right; it's called the "Fletcher-Munson Curve", and you didn't invent it.  It's why once upon a time a conventional receiver or integrated amplifier had a "Loudness" contour knob on its front panel.

Then you wrote, "So if there's no location information, and moving the subs around by feet all over the room never alters any bass detail, how can it possibly affect (nonexistent) bass detail if a spring lets a sub move a millimeter? Rhetorical question. It can't."
Here you are conflating location information with distortion.  If the sub moves in response to a low frequency audio signal, that means that some of the energy in the signal was lost in doing the work necessary to move the speaker.  This could cause an aberrant presentation of the musical signal at certain frequencies, due to loss of energy at certain frequencies.  That phenomenon is a form of distortion. So, in my opinion, it is best to anchor a subwoofer as firmly as possible in the listening environment.  You can argue the other side of that question, but not using the rationale presented in your last post.  You'll have to do better.  I don't disagree with your bit about bass location.  But I will turn your conclusion around; if the springs do nothing to affect bass detail or a sense of bass location, then why use springs at all?

Hi guys, For those that experienced  loss of bass using these springs, did clarity and detail correspondingly increase, and visa versa.

Assuming you experimented, what component  that was "springed" most benefited the clarity of your system? Thanks.

Duke explained this some 2 years ago (that I saw, and probably before that) and it was one of the many facts that helped convince me to build my DBA. 

Audio is full of complex concepts and this is a big one: human beings DO NOT hear all frequencies the same. Not at all. Not even close. Therefore we need to think differently- in some cases like this one very radically differently- depending on what part or aspect of the sound we are talking about.  

Its not like we don't perceive all kinds of detail that we ascribe to bass. I say ascribe to bass because it seems impossible for these things to actually be "in the bass".  

For example it has been noted by myself, Tim, and others with multiple subs that the subs disappear while the bass appears to be very localizable in terms of being totally integrated into the sound stage. Yet there is no way that information is coming from the bass. It has to be coming from higher frequencies. Our brains map out or create the image of bass in a location, probably same as they create the image of a singer in between the speakers. The result we hear is stable 3D localizable bass, even though in reality the bass is pure volume, the location of the subs has nothing to do with it. 

This is easily proven. Everyone with a DBA has moved them around trying to find better and better locations. Everyone who has done this talks about how even the frequency response is. Frequency response is volume. Nothing else. Volume. Not a one of us ever said we moved a sub and the location of the bass changed. Not a one. Because there is no location information in bass that low.  

So if there's no location information, and moving the subs around by feet all over the room never alters any bass detail, how can it possibly affect (nonexistent) bass detail if a spring lets a sub move a millimeter? 

Rhetorical question. It can't.

MC, I wonder about this too, especially when people talk about the bass response of headphones.  Duke is a great guy. One of the best and most honest people in the audio business.

Even though Duke (Audiokinesis) and others have posted this repeatedly a lot of people still don’t know. So here’s the scoop: scientific research has demonstrated that human beings cannot hear low bass frequencies AT ALL unless it is a full wavelength.

Got that? Just to be clear, when we are talking about say 40 Hz that is 1/40th of a second. Just so everyone knows, sound travels at about 1 foot per millisecond. One millisecond is one thousandth of a second. 1/40th of a second is 0.025 seconds. Read that one out: twenty-five one-thousandths of a second.

What this means, your 40 Hz bass note travels TWENTY FIVE FEET before it even registers as a sound AT ALL!

In order to believe bass detail has anything to do with stiffness, rigid floor, things that matter in terms of tiny fractions of an inch, when in reality its FEET that matter with bass, you have to ignore all this science.  

There is no fine transient information in subwoofer bass. None at all. Its all volume. Period.

That is the science.

If I’m harsh its because I know you’ve read this all a hundred times, and simply decided for some reason or other to keep pushing your false narrative. You can stop pushing. It ain’t going nowhere. Because its wrong.

My point is that putting you sub woofers on spring is not isolating anything from the bass. Springs or no springs the house rattles just the same.

But it does do a decent job of totally blunting transient function and messing up fine definition in the bass. 

Super stiff stands for bookshelf speakers, massive ones, and lock-coupled to a rigid floor..all that happens for a REASON.

@noromance   You mean triangulate the springs under the turntable, rather then under each corner?

@millercarbon I tried lots of combinations under the phono including naked single springs. I even added brass weights inside the amp. 
I'll try adding them under the suport board as @slaw suggested.
Of course, it's not to suggest I couldn't start re-tuning all the other springs but that's the path to madness!

@simao Good to hear. Try 3 footers if using 4.

With springs its very important they be tuned to the mass of the component.

Yes it is very important and i had the experience of audible differences with a modification of less than 1 % of the compressive mass...(between 100 and 200 grams)

But for those who will use them with small speakers, easy to damp with a load, the use of the boxes springs ask for a DIFFERENTIAL tuned compressive force to eliminate or decrease internal resonance and not only isolate the speaker....

I try an experiment that make an astonishing difference...

I put 4 springs boxes under the damping load on top of my speakers,(75 pounds ) and the differential tuned compressive force created by the addition of the speaker weight, in addition to the damping load, on the springs boxes located directly under my speakers themselves, decrease the standing wave negative power of the internal resonance of the speaker and gives a more natural timbre and a better imaging at the end..
( It was very important and it takes me a few days to fine tuned, this time for the 2 set of boxes springs, the damping load)

For speakers where it is possible to do it, a differential tuned compressive force is very amazing...

Springs are good isolation but they had their own problem and are not perfect, nothing is....But with a differential tuned compressive force they are near perfect yes for speakers....2 problems are there: isolation and resonance....

I wrote that because i had see no one making that experiment ....It seems all use only 4 springs boxes under the speakers and it is not an optimal solution for me because of these 2 problems....

And that experiment solve for me the mechanical embedding of the speakers .....

My springs boxes are on top of a multi layered sandwich platform on my desk, near other components, then it was very important for me to solve that vibrations problem on my desk....... It is done at peanuts costs....

For the electrical grid embedding i create my own solution also not perfect but very effective...The more complex to solve was the acoustical embedding... I just make other improvement today with devices controls of my own and i will speak about that in my thread tomorrow....


My best to you....

I just received and installed these springs under my VPI HW19 Mk4. They replaced existing tapered rubber feet which I then put beneath the SAMA. 

Big, noticeable difference in depth and instrument location. Just an overall, more palpable listening experience. 

With springs its very important they be tuned to the mass of the component. What seems to work best is a spring soft enough to compress about half way when loaded. If it compresses more than 2/3 then the component is too heavy and you need to use more or stiffer springs. This is what I had with my phono stage at first, and it resulted in way too much deep bass and a somewhat rolled off top end. All I did was add a spring, making the whole suspension stiffer. This tightened up the bass a lot while at the same time improved top end extension.

Phono stages tend to be pretty light weight. I would bet your bass was lost because the phono stage was too light for the springs you were using. You could test this very easily by changing (removing) springs, or adding weight ala mahgister. He has played around and noticed even a change of a pound or two makes a difference in the response.

You have Nobsound, right? Did you try it with fewer springs? You may only need 2 springs per footer. I only need 3, and that’s for the Herron phono stage on BDR Shelf with another small Shelf on top plus one 2 lb dive weight! Once you get the number of springs right fine tune with weight on top of the component. I have a small bag with about 2 lbs of lead shot in it and the difference it makes with cones is barely noticeable but the difference on springs is obvious.

Right now my amp and phono stage are on BDR Shelf, with the springs under the Shelf. Need to try moving them to between the component and the Shelf. When I can find the time..... problem is my system sounds so good now I don’t want to tweak I just want to listen!

Just a suggestion, try the springs between the wood platform and the concrete block.

My turntable and monoblocs are on springs. When I added them to the phono-preamp, I lost bass response. Frequency response tilted up in the mids. No resonant drone or rumble. Replaced with metal cones and all returned to normal.

Added more of these things, now have them under the turntable, phono stage, amp, conditioner, and all 5 subs. Plus of course the different springs under the Moabs.

Things were going great until I started noticing a really bad drone or rumble. Immediately assumed it had to be the turntable, and spent a lot of time tweaking and adjusting making sure everything was perfectly level.

Thought I’d solved it a couple times but it kept coming back. Intermittent problems are the hardest! A couple times was sure it was solved, the record would play silent, but then comes the rumble. My big clue was playing Simon and Garfunkel Scarborough Fair, the lead-in groove would be nice and quiet at first until after several seconds the rumble would build up and be quite loud.

If it was the motor, or bearing, or anything like that it would be there every record all the time. This was telling me it had to be some kind of resonance in the system. I had been using springs under most of this stuff for quite a while with no problems until recently.

But now there were springs under the conditioner. Which is connected to a typically stiff power cord, also suspended. Which goes into the phono stage. Which is on springs. I remembered how much the low bass was affected by tuning the springs under the phono stage. Hmmm.....

Well if its a resonance then could be what’s happening is an inaudibly small amount of low frequency rumble is making its way through the system back to the phono stage where its creating a positive feedback loop and what I’m hearing is like that horrible mic feedback only instead of a shrieking scream its this low bass rumble.

Simple enough to check. Change the resonance, cancel the feedback, no more rumble. Wedged some stuff under one corner of the phono stage. Silence. Blissful silence.

I think what is going on is now with everything suspended everything moves more freely and for the most part this is good. Beyond good. Great! But it really is tuning, and a little care must be taken to avoid having too many things with the same resonance.

This will be highly system dependent. Look at my system. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 The conditioner is in a straight line between the sub amps and phono stage. The sub amps are one of the few things not suspended. Could be by springing the conditioner I unwittingly created a situation where the sub amps are feeding resonant energy right into the phono stage.

I don’t expect many to have this problem- at least not until they get to where a lot of the system is suspended. Main reason I mention it is because, if you think about it, the same could be happening a lot more often than we think- just at a much less obvious level and without the drone that made this so (relatively) easy to track down.

@lewm 

as is so often the case in this hobby, we have a phenomenon on one hand and a hypothesis on the other, and we marry them often without much evidence.

Shocker!  😎 

mahgister, You may hear what you say you hear, but the phrase "damp the internal resonance" as a mechanism for what you hear is unclear.

You are right, it is unclear, especially for me....

I only tried to convey my experience....

I tought previously that only springs fine tuned under my speakers could and would do the job...

I was wrong....

Adding some mass on the load to compensate for the weight of the speaker itself and create a slight difference between the load on the springs that are under the speaker and those that are directly under the load on top of the speakers, create a better vibrations controls mechanism...

The only explanation that comes to my mind is that the 2 sets of springs with a slight difference in compression decrease the power of the standing waves negative impact that are associated with resonance...

But i am not a scientist by far...

The only fact is the fact i observed relatively to the tonal accuracy with a second set of springs.... The results is amazing and audible immediately...

Then i will wait for other’s explanation....

mahgister, You may hear what you say you hear, but the phrase "damp the internal resonance" as a mechanism for what you hear is unclear.  In other words, as is so often the case in this hobby, we have a phenomenon on one hand and a hypothesis on the other, and we marry them often without much evidence.  Can you say how a mass on springs placed on top of a cabinet can "damp the internal resonance"?  I do believe that just placing a  mass on top can lower the resonant frequency of the cabinet, but why the springs?

Putting the speaker on springs will make it worse.

This is not my ears impressions...

I know my ears are biased.... :)

This does nothing for cabinet resonance, vibrating panels.

2 set of springs boxes instead of one with small difference in load on them will damp the internal resonance...It is very audible... Audible immediately in the naturalness of timbre.....

I know my ears are biased.... :)

Bars of gold bullion perhaps?
😊😊

Not at all, petrified old heads will do.....

:)

The real problem is subwoofers. You have a significant mass vibrating +- 2 cm.   Any vibration of the enclosure is distortion. This is for any speaker, if you feel the speaker vibrating you have distortion. Putting the speaker on springs will make it worse. Fixing a heavy mass to the top of the speaker will lower the frequency it vibrates at, get it low enough and it becomes insignificant.  This does nothing for cabinet resonance, vibrating panels. This is avoided by thoughtful design.

..I will look for some load more dense and compact than concrete..... :)

Bars of gold bullion perhaps?
😊😊

My 2 set of springs(4 boxes under each speaker and 4 boxes on top of each speaker and those then directly under the load) are slightly differently compressed by a difference around 8 pounds( the weigh of the speakers+ the load for one set of boxes and only the load for the other set of boxes)... This fact is important....

Then the distribution of the resonance pattern inside the speakers are modified so much that it is possible to immediately hears the difference.... It is not a difference in the direction toward bass frequencies or high frequencies, even if they improved, instead more a direction toward better mids frequencies and better timbre tonality and a better imaging then....A naturalness impossible for me to get with only one set of boxes under the speakers even if the load is fine tuned for them....

I think no one has use the spring boxes in this way, then even with springs internal speakers resonance has a destructive effect that goes unnoticed .... I realize that after my experiment....Adding a second set of boxes decrease internal resonance interferences...


No cat or children allowed in my audio room, and even my wife give me the dust cleaner to use it myself here.....I think that only ghosts of great composers go trough my room but their spectral wandering pose no threat to the equilibrium of this tower of springs, plates, and slabs of concrete.....I will look for some load more dense and compact than concrete..... :)

Lol@ Lewm.

As I said very unlikely but...
We have 6 cats and two of them are 20lb heavyweight contenders.
And at times they play rough....
I could see the 40lb combined weight at velocity hitting a speaker on springs and possibly dislodging said 75lb weight.

But as Mahgister stated, not a great idea for a common area setup which makes a lot more sense.

uber, If your cat is big enough to nudge a 75 lb weight, I am more afraid of IT than I am of the weight falling on anything.  I don't know if I want to get into it, but I don't see the added benefit of putting springs under a weight to be placed on TOP of a speaker, although a weight per se can be beneficial, and I do that myself.

i forget to clarify the fact that if i related my experience here it is only to  inform people about the unbeknownst negative impact of internal resonance of speakers on timbre in particular....This negative impact was always there unbeknownst to me with one set of springs..... That is my experience....

I am perfectly conscious that putting 75 pounds of concrete on top of speakers with 2 sets of springs boxes under the speakers and under the load is NOT a solution for most people....It is one for me and perhaps for someone else....

My best....

I would lose sleep imagining one or more of my cats splattered under a 75lb slab of concrete they knocked off the top of a speaker.......

Not likely I admit but who knows......

I will never do what i do in a common room,nor with children or cat....

:)

But i do what work.....And it is working great....

I have learn that the negative impact of internal resonance of the speakers on musical timbre is underestimated....Particularly with springs...

But with this placement my sound has never been so natural....In all my listening positions...

Anyway i am pretty sure nobody has think about springs under and above speakers....

That’s it.... It is done....

Hifi for peanuts is my "mot de passe"....Shocking for some, impossible for most..... But i made it.....

And yes "Ron Carter is in my room"....

My best to all.....

I would lose sleep imagining one or more of my cats splattered under a 75lb slab of concrete they knocked off the top of a speaker.......

Not likely I admit but who knows......

Whatever gets you through the night.

I had an idea...I think that a fine tuned damp mass in the speakers will do marvel but i cannot make it myself....

:)

But then i think that doubling the springs at the 2 ends of the speakers would be better and an improvement because the removing of resonance would be facilitated, less than with a fine tune damped mass but anyway.... That worked....

I put 4 (chinese copy of the nobsound springs) new  boxes with the 7 springs on top of the speakers adding only a few pounds of concrete to my already heavy load( around 75 pounds ).

More details in the imaging and better bass without negative impact on the higher frequencies...

Now my speakers are between 8 springs boxes each...

Total success....

Very low cost....

The mechanical embedding of an audio system is very important....Resonance kill the naturalness of timbre....To conduct listening test to finetune your springs installation for speakers, always listen to the instrument timbre first and last, not only to the frequencies affected by modifications....

Hello,
Thanks a lot to all who provided valuable feedback to my turntable level question. I am still a novice when it comes to setting up a turntable and I am learning a lot from the current discussion. There is a possibility that my platter didn't fit exactly as it should on the body of the turntable. Musical Surroundings folks replaced the platter of my Clearaudio turntable a few months back and they put a newer version platter making the required height adjustment of the tonearm. I am suspecting that something went wrong in that installation but the problem is how do I prove it to them and have them fix the issue. The turntable plays ok without a visible issue....

mijostyn

... But out of level a tonearm will add additional skating forces ...

That’s true.

... in an ideal world all parts of the turntable should operate in exactly the same plane.

Yes, or at least in parallel planes for the turntable, plinth, and arm.

It is just a good measure to put the bubble next to the part that matters the most ...

If you’re using a typical little bubble level to set up your turntable, it’s no wonder that you have some of the playback problems you report. You’ll get more precise results with something like this.

... Unless you are using an arm that is dead straight raising and lowering the arm will change the azimuth ...

Correct. But there’s no reason to accept a turntable setup where those critical component parts - turntable, plinth, armboard/pickup arm - are not in proper alignment. If they cannot be properly aligned, then one or more of the parts are defective. Or poor quality. You've previously said that your stylus tilts towards the spindle when the arm is raised, but I wouldn't accept that from my turntable setup.

Obviously cleeds. But out of level a tonearm will add additional skating forces one way or the other and yes in an ideal world all parts of the turntable should operate in exactly the same plane. It is just a good measure to put the bubble next to the part that matters the most. And you are dead wrong cleeds. Unless you are using an arm that is dead straight raising and lowering the arm will change the azimuth, within the arc where the arm is expected to operate it is very slight but it will change by a minute or two.

mijostyn

... the devise that has to be level to prevent skating forces is the tonearm. So the best place to put your bubble level is on the tonearm board or plinth right at the base of the tonearm. If the platter is a tiny bit off it won’t matter.

Even a level pivoted pickup arm will generate skating force provided the arm has overhang, which almost all do.

The armboard, platter and plinth should all be located on absolutely parallel planes and if they’re not, there will be an issue. In mijostyn’s case, he’s mentioned several times that his pickup arm azimuth changes when VTA changes. That can be explained by a misalignment between arm/platter/plinth.