Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

Hi Lew and everyone else, sorry about the delay, out here in the country I don't always have access to Da 'Net, and the latest round of snowstorms has slowed everything down some more!!

Lew, the bearings did indeed come from Boca Bearing, but I must now add a caveat until further experimentation/notice: though in my own system - most particularly the Bauhaus Lenco/RS-A1/Monster Cable Sigma Genesis 2000 (a new acquisition to duke it out with the JMW/Ortofon Jubilee) - the bearing seemed to be a clear improvement, in another system the power and majesty of the Lenco seemed to be severely affected, though in terms of clarity, silence and detail it was a clear winner. In fact, I had done two things: obssessively restored the main bearing, AND inserted the ceramic ball bearing, so I'm not sure what was doing what. The new cleaning regimen did indeed improve the frictionlessness (added many minutes to the free rotation) of the main bearing without the substitution of the ceramic ball bearing, and did indeed improve the sonics substantially, as the recipient of one of my older Lencos attests.

But, I think the ceramic ball may be pulling that old audiophile trick I've heard so often from all kinds of equipment, from electronics through speakers and cartridges, acrylic platters and so on: strip away/supress a large part of the midbass so as to expose the midrange and high frequencies and create the illusion of increased clarity, speed/transients and detail. I don't yet know and will perform some comparisons today and through the week. It might have been my mood, or some other subjective phenomenon which caused my reaction to the changeover in a very pricey and impressive system (much more powerful before the changeover, but the owner of the Lenco loved the increase in clarity/silence/black background notwithstanding my own reaction), need to do more listening.

This tonal trick may in fact help some unbalanced set-ups (too rich, perhaps like mine which now prefers MCs, which thanks to the RS-A1 and JMW are now much more musical/MM-like), but in some systems - as yesterday (violins seemed borderline shrill, all the rosin and resin was gone) - will create problems.

Now, this ball bearing is critical, as the platter rides on it and so the whole sonic landscape depends on it. It's possible the sound of the Lenco depends on a metal ball, and Boca Bearing also has a variety of metal ball bearings which might be a better bet. Anyway, I'll get back to you all later on this issue (very time-consuming comparisons), so don't all stampede towards the ceramic balls just yet, I'll do dome listening today via my handy-dandy Bauhaus Lenco, via a similarly treated main bearing, but with the original steel ball bearing.

As to the acrylic, I bond it to the top of the platform the Lenco rides on Lew, not to the Lenco plinth itself. This improves the sound in most systems I've tried it in, though of course the usual synergy and room matching issues apply.

Finally, a note on the MM vs MC issue: I've long been advocating the superiority of MMs over MCs in all kinds of musically-important areas, more specifically gestalt (the sense of all musicians playing together to produce music rather than a disparate collection producing information/detail as many MCs/tonearm/'tables do), tonality (MMs capture resonances, wood, resins, varnish better, especially the Grado Woodies) and PRaT (Pace, Rhythm and Timing, making music especially exciting/driving); and that also many MMs produce surprising levels of detail when properly matched to tonearms (which usually means low-mass). But with my new sound-room, new/old very-rich/tubey Sony 2000F preamp (fabulous MC loadable phono stage) and with the acquisition of the MC-humanizing JMW 10.5 and RS-A1 tonearms, MCs now have the advantage in my system, which explains the current situation of MC-dominance at home. This is a first for me, and I'm still having fun with MMs, just a matter of synergies for the moment, working on getting a new soundroom, which will affect speaker choice and so on.

Anyway, have fun all, I'll get back to the bearing issue!

Nice job Jean!

Fascinated as usual, I went to the web and found that most tables using a ceramic bearing do not have the hard steel thrust plate or anything like the the dimpled pads like we have on the Lenco. The thrust pads were:

- bronze thrust plate with a "soft" ceramic bearing. (the Kokomo 401 bearing kit on ebay)
- ceramic ball running on a ceramic thrust plate. Project TT
- ceramic ball riding on a hybrid alloy bearing pad (bronze, I assume). Monaco TT
- Inverted sapphire disc/ceramic ball bearing for low noise and long wear (Forgot who, becides I just gave away all my sapphire and diamond discs :0)

So it seems like a bronze thrust plate may the other part of the puzzle for use of a ceramic bearing.

Something else tweaked my attention during my search - someone claimed that they "decouple" the bearing shaft from the bearing itself. Fitting a (very) small o-ring on the concave end of the bearing shaft might be very interesting. A thorough cleaning and couple of drops of super glue might be necessary to keep it in place.

So, Jean - what is the new cleaning process?

Mike

Hi Mike and all: I just substituted the original metal ball for the ceramic ball and heard a HUGE increase in bass power, midbass, and actual transparency, if perhaps a loss of some imaging focus, which may be addressed by other means (loading of the cartridge, speaker placement, etc.), so I have to declare the ceramic ball a Danger to the Lenco Mightiness, a Gelding of the Mighty Bull. Had the Lenco on Cyprus had the ceramic ball, the EMT would have been declared to winner in terms of power and PRaT, while the Lenco would have been deemed analytical. But, the Lenco surpassed the EMT in every area, offering a superior sense of limitless fluid POWER against the EMT's Garrard-like oversimplification of rhythm and timing (the Lenco offering a finer and more detailed exposition of complex timing which escaped the EMT, while clearly outperforming it in every audiophile area, like detail, imaging, decay/air and so on).

The Lenco I heard yesterday in the extreme high-end system, before the bearing-ectomy, sounded like the best turntable in the world bar none (Giant Direct Coupled Glas-Reinforced Lenco/Dynavector 507 MKII/Dynavector 17D MKIII), a Destroyer of EMTs and any belt-drive or DD you care to mention. The POWER, detail, SLAM, speed, transients and bass, with the familiar Amazon-like sense of barely-tapped limitless reserve, had to be heard to be believed (even I found it hard to credit). But after the bearing-ectomy, it sounded like a massive pricey belt-drive with an acrylic platter: analytical with overdamped bass and mushy low bass (speaking relative to idlers), the magic was GONE.

The ceramic bearing acts as a comb filter, filtering out some frequencies - specifically the mid-to-upper bass, precisely where the MOST striking difference between idlers and belt-drives exists - and exaggerating others (upper mids to high frequencies), thus creating this illusion of increased transparency and detail.

Now, I am not now going to try to match a ceramic bearing to the precise thrust-plate necessary to make it work, for now anyway, as here I will trust my gut reactions, as I did when I first heard an idler, when I first heard a Lenco, and when I first heard the birch-ply/MDF recipe I had been recommending and promoting on grounds of logic (CLD plus mass, avoidance of overdamping, but materials which will absorb rather than reflect energies....a perfect balance, intuitively/logically), but had not actually tried in the beginning. In each of these cases there was a Rightness which immediately struck a biological/emotional response, and a physical response (i.e. my ears saying Holy Crap and perking up like bunny ears)!!

Now many audiophiles like to dismiss these types of responses as subjective and so declare them meaningless and misleading. But music IS an emotional and biological experience (the urge to dance, to cry, to scream, to make trouble...), as well as an intellectual experience (the mathematical beauty of Baroque classical music, better exposed by a the Subtle but Mighty Lenco than anything else out there) and so to dismiss this makes no logical sense. We MUST trust our instincts. If I have a particular talent, it is my ability to recognize these responses in myself and be able to immediately chuck all I realize on the instant I had erroneaously believed (as when I, proud owner of two high-end belt-drive turntables heard my first idler) in favour of the contradictory experience (i.e humble modded Garrard SP-25 kicks the shit out of high-end belt-drives in all musically-important areas).

Now, it must be said that I seem to be able to extract more from Lencos and other idlers than many others whose Lencos fall short of the mark set by the Lencos I send out as ambassadors. This is largely due to audiophiles' weakness for the exotic and the complex. And so they rush out and apply - without comparison, this is VERY important - the latest flavour-of-the-month materials (i.e. bubinga wood and Ipe which reflect rather than absorb, approaching stone and metal for hardness and so on; ceramic and acrylic which both act as comb filters [in the absence of bonding/CLD-ing], the latest fashionable motors, etc.) and techniques (i.e decoupling which mitigates POWER and focus, separate arm-pods which introduce relative motion, materials which over-damp, and so on) without regard to logic (relative motion, overdamping, underdamping, etc, which should be evident without the experiment.).

I'm convinced that part of the Secret of the Mighty Idlers is the use of simple metal (platter) and wood (wood allowing Direct Coupling which is SUCH a HUGE improvement while reflective stone does not allow this). So, the metal to metal bearing works well, as it does in the platter itself, as does the use of birch-ply/MDF, which offers a perfect balance of mass/weight and just the right note of hardness/softness, absorbing without overdamping, solditidy which leads to incredible bass, SLAM, dynamics, transients and tonal correctness from the highest to the lowest frequencies. This last CLD recipe may not be exotic, but it is incredibly effective, as is instantly heard when tried. Wich is to say, the original Lenco parts, properly cleaned, relubed, restored, and set-up, are absolutely incredible in their seemingly limitless potential and actual results. The only parts I've found so far which exhibit any wear are, indeed, the nylon thrust plates, which dimple.

This doesn't mean I won't be seeking to improve this aspect: for instance I am trying to source new teflon thrust plates, and will look into thicker steel thrust plates (which like Reinderspeter's top-plate should improve overall sound quality without affecting the balance...the Mighty Amazon in Full Flow Lenco POWER, which must NOT be mitigated/compromised, only further improved!!!). I will also test out varying metal ball bearings. But I'll stick to metal, as my guts/ears attest.

As to the cleaning regimen Mike, long ago I reported on the restoration and replinthing of an NOS grease-bearing Garrard 301. Now the grease - an organic compound - had degenerated and formed invisible coral reefs on the metal of the shaft and bronze bushings of the main bearing. I discovered this when, after two cleaning of solvents, the now-shiny main bearing continued to stick in precisely the same places where it had stuck while the original grease was still in there. I scratched my head, and pulled out my handy-dandy Bullshit-Free metal cleaner: powdered and water-soluble Cameo pot and pan cleaner. I bought a pipe cleaner, and applied myself to both the interior of the bearing and the exterior of the main shaft. I blew compressed air through the bearing, made up my new Mobil 1-based grease (matched in consistency to the original honey-like grease) and discovered that the bearing now revolved smoothly with no problems.

My next Garrard experience came with an oil-bearing 301, which had no sticking problems, so I performed the usual solvent baths sans-Cameo, Direct Coupled it to the usual high-mass CLD recipe, and found it to be far short of the Lenco in performance. Again I scratched my head, and again I pulled out my Cameo, but this time introduced a new element: a 24-hour submersion in WD-40, an excellent solvent. Watch your brass and other metals magically come out shiny and new-looking!! THEN I applied myself with the Cameo, pipe cleaners and stiff sponges. After all this and the compressed air and new syntheitc lubrication, I reassembled everything and found the Garrard to be in the same ball-park as the Lenco.

But, the Lenco being so good without this obssessive cleaning regimen (using the solvent baths but no Cameo as it didn't seem an issue), I let well enough alone, only finally trying it out with the Lenco (which having such a smaller bearing/bushing, required lengthy polishing using Q-tips to scrub with the Cameo) this past week. WHAT a difference (which I erroneously concluded was due to the ceramic ball)!! The platter revolved so long I went away and had a nap. And sonically, a tranformation (leaving the metal ball in place). The moral of this story is: solvent are not enough. The old lubricants are organic (as are even most synthetics today as they are not purely synthetic as I discovered when I bought some purely synthetic stuff on Cyprus), and they degenerate over time, creating invisible bacterial colonies which must be scrubbed away to restore the sonics/potential fully.

NOW we are approaching the Full Idler Potential: obssessive treatment/addrssing of various issues - without replacing parts - leads to incredible heights of sonic fireworks and bliss!!! Interfering with the original recipe by resorting to new materials may lead to a Gelding of the Bull, and incorrect conclusions as to the power and true potential of idler-wheel drives. Do not rush to embrace the latest exotic materials and complex techniques without first hearing the context: a properly-restored and logically and practically designed plinth/tonearm set-up. THEN test out your new materials and techniques, as how otherwise are your conclusions valid (this argument goes back to the earliest days of the original thread, when several sought to "improve" the Lenco by replacing the fabulous motor and adapting it to belt-drive!!)?!? Not to mention the fact that these gelded bulls then become ambassadors, and end up holding back the rising Idler Tide (properly restored and set-up idlers are superior in every way to their belt and dircet-drive competitors...it's just that there remain ways to improve performance without affecting the powers and balance of these machines, like the Cleaning Regimen). Short form: don't fall for bullshit, embrace results.

Anyway, that's enough for now, have fun all!! Vive la Lenco, Vive la Idler-Wheel (which - already awesome in earliest days - continues to climb the Sonic Ladder)!!

Oops, thanks Mike for the research, I leave it to you to source the various elements and get back to us with the results ;-)!! I've taken the first steps in having new teflon thrust-plates made too. Now to treat my "Ultra Lenco" and see which incredible place it takes me: Why don't you come with me, little girl, on a Magic Carper Ride!!!!

Just a quick note on the use of Stillpoints with the Lenco. I've kept the bolt feet on, but they sit on a layered base of maple and acrylic with large size Stillpoints under the base just below where the bolt feet rest on top. Adding the Stillpoints definitely improves detail retrieval, and does it in a way that sounds smooth and full. Putting Aurios under the base also improves detail retrieval, and makes for a brighter sound. Brass cones sound more like the Aurios. Which is best is depends on whether you want to go 'richer' or 'brighter,' but it's an improvement either way.