Verdier with or without the steel ball


Hi

I recently bought a Verdier TT magnet version wich is called
"La Platine".

In a first time I used it without the small steel ball provided by Verdier and let the platter be repulsed only by the magnetic force.
The result was very bad: it sounded lean without bass at all .

In a second time I used the little ball following the instruction from Verdier and then it really revealed the potentiel of this wonderfull TT.

A friend of mine guives me the following explanation :

To have a chance to reproduce bass you must have a "physical contact "
He pretends that the technical choice wich consists in isolating the platter through magnets , air or liquid automatically leads to the same flaw: a lean sound without bass .

Any opinion would be very welcome

André
tenmus
Andre, I'm not sure I would agree with your friend's contention. I have never owned a TT w/ magnetically suspended platter, but have had two w/ air-suspended platters, and they had no problem w/ bass.

It could be that a magnetic suspension alone allows too much "bounce" in the platter which indeed would reduce bass. Air suspension platters are "rock solid" as long as the platter is sufficiently heavy.

I know nothing of liquid suspension platters.
The fact that a ball bearing enhanced platter stability on one particular PV doesn't prove that it would do the same for every other turntable.

Much depends on implementation. If the lateral bearing tolerances are tight enough to maintain platter stability and prevent "rocking", a non-contact vertical support might indeed be capable of excellent bass and dynamics, as Nsgarch has found.

Your friend should be cautious of deducing broad general principles from a single example. "Cogito, ergo erro!"
Dear André: My experience about was with Micro Seiki TT: I owned an air bearing model and now I own a non-air bearing
one.

Are there any differences?, yes there are and specific on bass the non-airbearing has a tight bass that the air bearing one, this one has a very good bass but it is a litle on the " soft " side.

For what I read ( and hear for one time ) the Verdier is very good on that subject.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.