Home Vinyl Asylum

Welcome Licorice Pizza (LP) lovers! Setup guides and Vinyl FAQ.

Most miss the point of suspended designs

Suspended tables are not supposed to "bounce". The point of compressed springs (or if inverse sprung, elongated springs) is to act as a filter above a prescribed resonance frequency. This would help keep sound transmission from the speakers et al, from getting to the suspended sub-assembly. Which, usually included the tonearm and pickup.

Call me a cynic, but I always laugh when I read about achieving the perfect bounce! I believe that as long as you have the springs within certain tolerance to each other, and you are within the resonant frequency range the suspension is designed for, then the suspension is doing its job correctly. It should not be moving while the record is playing. Now, maybe there is a little golden magic when all the springs are "tuned" exactly the same, but that is very hard to do and not exactly repeatable due to the transit of the tonearm and different weights of records, etc. As long as you understand that "tuning" a spring is a matter of adjusting the mass either compressing or elongating it (changing its natural frequency).

Watch the attached video for a good demonstration.

I think part of the answer to the OP's original question is that with modern setups most enthusiasts pay much more attention to speaker TT relationships, have better support system for their equipment, and are much more diligent about arm/cart resonances. And, since TT's are much less common to the masses these days, I think TT manufacturers have much less incentive to provide suspended designs. Along with the added complexity and costs associated.



This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Sonic Craft  


Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups

FAQ

Post a Message!

Forgot Password?
Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
  Remember my Moniker & Password  (What's this?)    Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:
Message:   (Posts are subject to Content Rules)
Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:  Automagically notify you when someone responds.