Suspended Basis vs Nonsuspended Teres

I have a Vibraplane under my Redpoint TT and it does make an excellent base for an unsuspended TT. I do think though that other less expensive base materials such as granite slabs can do a very good job. As far as unsuspended tables in general there are too many variances IMO to make a statement such as that. My unsuspended TT weighs well over 100lbs without the base. There are other unsuspended tables weighing closer to 40-60lbs. These will react much differently to vibrations and I would suspect that the lighter turntables will need increased isolation in comparison to heavier ones.

Hmm, an interesting thread. First I need to point out that AJ's reference to "what Teres said to one of their dealers" is bogus. Teres does not have dealers and I certainly did not say any of the things he mentions. Perhaps he confused Teres with some other manufacturer.

Regarding the suspended/unsuspended debate, I can offer my experience along with some theoretical musings. I find that Teres turntables are not particularly sensitive to how they are sited. They sound better on a rigid, high mass stand but they perform very well on even a cheap lightweight shelf. Nothing new about this. I have never seen any turntable suspended or otherwise that did not benefit from a good stand. If anything I find that Teres turntables are less sensitive to siting than most suspended turntables.

I think that there are some good theoretical reasons for why this would be the case. Perhaps the most important aspect of any turntable design is elimination of vibration and resonance. But we need to be concerned with both internal and external vibration. A remarkable amount of energy is generated by the stylus riding in the groove. That energy is transmitted into the record and also into the tonearm. I suspect that in many cases there is more vibrational energy eminating within the turntable than from external sources. If anything isolation hampers dissipation of energy from within the turntable.

Our approach at Teres is the polar opposite of isolation. We use damping in the form of loose lead shot to dissipate vibrational energy that enters the turntable, regardless of where the energy comes from. Our experience with Teres turntables would seem to indicate that it is the energy from within the turntable that is the most important to dissipate. It is my experience and I think a fairly consistent consensus amoung Teres owners that coupling and dissipation works better than isolation. With few exceptions I find that rigid coupling all the way to the floor sounds best. Any isolation along the way generally does not work well. The idea is to provide a path for dissipating any remaining energy.

A good illustration is the granite surface plates that I have been experimenting with recently. I bought a 154 pound 18x24x3 chunk of granite to put a turntable on and was shocked at how resonant was. I had the plate on some rubber feet and it had prominent, high pitched ring. Placing a turntable on the granite was predictably bad. However, simply removing the rubber feet was a total transformation. Just coupling the granite to the wood shelf I was using nearly eliminated the resonance and it went from a very poor to excellent sounding turntable shelf. With the rubber feet there was no where for the energy to go so it remained undissipated in the granite, wreaking sonic havoc.

So much for the musings. My theories may be bunk, but fortunatley the only thing that really matters is the sound. Whatever the reason, Teres turntables generally do not need or benefit from isolation. And while isolation no doubt has benefits, in some cases it evidently does more harm than good.

Chris

Hi Chris,

I currently have a Basis 2000 and was considering replacing it with a Teres 245. Then I read this thread and started thinking about the suspension and thought what it might do to my 2000. You see, the suspension costs about $1000.00 and a 245, double that plus some. Makes deciding which way to go a trying effort, right?

At any rate, it looks like I'm back to square one: finding answers to help me find a table that will last me a while.

Did someone say the SME is a good design?

George (confused but okay)

cardiackid I did a search on the Vinyl Asylum but did not see any postings at all there from you. http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/search.pl?searchtext=&b=OR&topics_only=N&forum=vinyl&topic=&author=cardiackid&date1=&date2=&slowmessage=&sort=score&sortOrder=DESC

Anyway, you may want to try this question there. There are some individuals with very good engineering backgrounds there that will perhaps respond to your question, which of course has been asked there in the Vinyl Asylum on many occassions. MOST of the time the responses come from those with little background in the study of the technical reasons such decisions are made by a given manufacturer.

To wit: the type of vibrations we are talking about isolating and, almost equally as important, WHY we are trying to isolate them.

A good example of this is the more simplified reason a suspended deck was developed in the first place: Its suspension is tuned, or should be tuned, to somewhere around 3Hz. This means resonances above that freq are isolated from ever reaching the table, so long as the installation is optimized (e.g., a springy floor can spell disaster).

AIRBORN vibrations, such as those coming from a pair of JBL's at 110dB SPL, are of course not isolated from reaching the cart/arm combination. So there are those who will only put their table, isolated or otherwise, in an adjacent room.

The point here is that we must be sure we are talking about specific vibrations that occur in a specific environment (what happens when you live in a flimsy flat in the inner city and trucks roll on by hourly?; Here the ADVANTAGE clearly goes to the suspended deck).

There are those who have taken issue with Mr. Conti's engineering, and are backing this up with their own examples. I am not one of those individuals b/c I am NOT an acoustical, electrical or mechanical engineer, the latter being perhaps the most important in matters of bearing design, the former in helping one with acoutic vibrations.

If you want sound engineering based on mathematical equations to reach some end, and then sophisticated measurements to substantiate the theoretical engineering which is finally substantiated in the listening room, well you may have a hard time squeezing that out of some of the non-suspended deck makers. Perhaps not!

I personally had so much trouble discerning these differences for myself, I ended up buying both a suspended deck and nonsuspended one (modified Gyro SE and modified Scheu). I will not reveal my preference here b/c it would be unfair, as I am not convinced that I have completely optimized either installation, although I've sure done a lot so far.

FWIW

Goyescas

Thank you everyone. I had not given the suspended vs nonsuspended issue enough thought until recently. I will be making a decision soon and I will factor in all of the info provided. Thanks.

Goyescas: I read the vinyl asylum regularly but I have had trouble getting my posts to go through in the past. I am sure it reflects some ineptness on my part. However, I am more of a reader and buyer than a poster to either Audiogon or Audioasylum. I guess I feel I have more to learn than I have good info to share. I am learning from you all and that is fun.

One fact is sure, this suspension issue is very complicated and challenging to many of us. I will be taking an open minded approach to the problem and giving my ears the benefit of the doubt.