TriPlanar Tips
Dear Paperw8, Your point about people blowing more time and money is absolutely spot on, and it is work like Doug's in understanding the gear he owns that adds to the volumes of information on this forum. At your leisure, take a look at Doug's posts, and you'll find a host of them where he advises postesrs to slow down, put their checkbook back in their drawer, and get to know their gear better. In response to your question, I manufacture turntables (http://www.galibierdesign.com/). I also sell the Tri-Planar, so I'm fairly familiar with it. I purposely described the cantilevered bar that supports the damping trough as RELATIVELY flimsy. Yes, it appears to be rigid, but the type of movement we're talking about can be sonicaly significant if the rest of the system is up to resolving it. Now, if the turntable has its own problems, then removing the trough is a waste of time. The turntable's problems will mask tiny, incremental improvements. This is what my reference to following the turntable hierarchy was about - paying attention to your turntable before considering upgrades to arms and cartridges. This brings up another interesting point. Frequntly, you can make three or four subtle changes that collectively can snap your head to attention. One needs to be cognizant of that as well. The damping trough has been with the design of the arm for ages - I believe with the Mark II version when Herb Papier (its creator) was still with us. This was back when many MC cartridges were fairly poorly behaved (vibrationally), and it served a useful purpose back then. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I think it's great that Tri-Planar still provides it. You never know when you'll need it. You're right that many specs and numbers can be meaningless. What I would add to your comments is that when they are taken in a vacuum they have almost no context. IMHO, when someone quotes a wide bandwidth design, the question I would ask is "what were your design goals and how does wide bandwidth help to achieve them?". Surely, we don't hear as well as bats, but there may be a solid rationale behind a wide bandwidth design - not one whose end state is frequency response out to 200K. Here's an example I'm mor familiar with. On the other side of the frequency spectrum, you'll find tube amplifier manufacturers quoting a -3dB point of 3 Hz. You might conclude that "I can't hear anything meaningful (or even feel it) below 20-30 Hz, but you would be missing the point. The whole idea behind a -3dB point of 2-3Hz is that all of the phase shifting resulting from the power supply filters is done and gone, in the 3-4 octaves it takes to reach frequencies where there is audible, musical content. What you'll hear with a design like this is better timing in the music. Welcome aboard. We really don't eat our young, although at any given point in time, we all have our bad days. If you happen to be attending this year's Rocky Mountain Audiofest, drop by in either Suite 1130 or 1030. Ralph at Atma-sphere is always there, and Tri Mai of Tri-Planar always shares a room with him. You'll likely get to meed Doug and Paul as well. It's fun time. Cheers, Thom @ Galibier |
Heretofore, people have just thrown around the term "resonance" without saying exactly what they were talking about. It appears that you are citing a specific resonance: namely, the resonance in the cantilever of the cartridge. This is something that I can work with. From what I understand, concern about cantilever resonance is a legitimate concern. However, the way that you address that concern is to know what you are doing before you buy the cartridge. For example, it is not a true statement that the trough in the Triplanar is "vestigal"; if you use a low compliance cartridge with the Triplanar you can have problems with resonances in the cantilever. That was why the trough was put there - for use with low compliance cartridges; and there are companies (like Clearaudio) who still make low compliance cartridges. The thing to do, then, is to look at the specifications for the cartridge to determine where the resonance is likely to be if you install it on a Triplanar tonearm. As I understand it, you typically want the resonant frequency to fall in the 8-12 Hz range. Now, if there are other sources of resonances to which some here are referring, where the source or potential cause is not articulated, then I can't work with that. But what I do know, is that it appears to me that there is a fair amount of effort involved in removing the trough from the Triplanar. I don't know why I should undertake that effort other than for the fact that I read some comments from people who proclaim that it will make a difference and that, somehow, if I can't tell the difference then the fault lies in my hearing or in my system. I make no personal statement about anyone making such assertions, but the way that I think about things, it's hard for me to work with these kinds of claims if I don't understand the underlying physical phenomenon that I am trying to address. My training is in electrical engineering and not in the arts, so I think about this stuff differently. |
Hi Thom, Is the "-3dB @ 3Hz" primarily designed into the turntable power supply? I own an nicely working old radio station Technics SP-10 MKIIA and would like to know if/how I can optimize my table in this regard. FWIW, I have a Tri-planar arm en route and have found this thread most helpful. John Thank you. |
Hi Paperw8, "But what I do know, is that it appears to me that there is a fair amount of effort involved in removing the trough from the Triplanar." It took me 1 minute to remove the trough. Simple, easy 2 small screws. 30 seconds with the needle in the grove and you won't look back. Of course my table allows me pretty easy access to the bottom of the arm. Other's may not have this. Such as I have a friend who was about to remove his arm, instead we took a pair of vice grips to a $1.00 jewelers screw driver and put a 90 degree angle in on the tool. So for him, 1 min with the vice grips, 1 min with the (now 90 degree bend) screw driver. Lifetime of better sound... If you can give this a try, maybe via this bent screw drive method, we'd all be curious to your thoughts afterwards...Thanks |
