Turntable advice / opinion on setup / sound.

I find it interesting where a designer goes way outside of what is considered normal, good practices in order to optimize one particular aspect of performance even if some other aspect is supposedly compromised.  Recently, Kuzma introduced an extremely expensive pivoted arm that is made of synthetic sapphire from the headshell to the pivot assembly, the purpose being to maximize rigidity.  The arm has an effective mass of 60 gms which is WAY outside of recommended mass for any modern cartridge.  I have not heard it, but, I've heard many Kuzma pivoted and air bearing arms and I think, based on the sound, that they know what they are doing.  

@elliottbnewcombjr 

IF I was going to make a ’new’ 3 point mount, I would make 1 centered forward hole to fix overhang distance for my fixed arm, and two rear screws 1/2" apart to simply fasten thru the two slots, triangular should be a better mount than 3 down the centerline

Isn't that exactly what Rega has done?

@richardbrand 

I sit corrected, thank you.

Their template shows a line of 3 holes, I failed to notice the 3 screws were exactly as you mentioned, as I described, 1 in the front fixing overhang/2 in the slots.

I guess Roy is good looking.

@elliottbnewcombjr 

I guess Roy is good looking

If you like that sort of thing!

He is six months younger than me, but he has drifted successfully through his life, seemingly spending his money on wine, women and song while wasting the rest!  We both won industrial scholarships to help with university expenses. 

In the austerity years after WW2, when many things were rationed, we had to make do with whatever we could find, and fixing things was a national obsession.  His dad went separate ways the year after rationing stopped, which would have made life especially tough for Roy.

I like his ethics (which puns with Essex where he lives - I grew up in nearby Sussex) but have no opinion on his record spinners other than their obvious market success.  If I had the lazy cash, I’d buy his book A Vibration Measuring Machine.

In many ways, Wilson Benesch and Rega have set out to tame the vibrations that affect every part of a deck, but come at it from different ends of the market and from different approaches - empirical (Rega) versus analytical (Wilson Benesch).  I only know about Wilson Benesch from their excellent white papers and government research grants, and their home city of Sheffield is where my industrial scholarship took me.  They have an advantage over Rega - they could use computer modelling and finite element analysis from the get-go.  It is quite fascinating that they still made empirical judgements, which could only be validated when measurement techniques caught up.  That’s surely an audiophile parable. 

I am lucky enough to have Ken Kessler’s book on Quad, which was included free-of-charge with my ESL-2905 speakers, and I did meet Peter Walker at his factory.  Peter was an outstanding electrical engineer, and never made turntables.  Roy as a wise mechanical engineer has avoided electronics, leaving that to his staff.  But I digress.