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High mass vs Low Mass Turntables - Sound difference?

As I am recently back playing with analog gear after some 15 years away, I thought I would ask the long time experts here about the two major camps of record players -- high vs low mass-loaded-type tables...

For example, an equivalently priced VPI table (say a Classic, Aries or Prime) versus a Rega RP8/10 or equivalent Funk Firm table...  the design philosophies are so different ... one built like a tank, the other like a lightweight sports car...

Just wondering if the folks here have had direct experience with such or similar tables, and what have been your experiences and sense of strengths and weaknesses of these two different types of tables.



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13blm's avatar
13blm
47 posts
 
Totally agree. A golf ball floating in goo is hardly low friction. Many examples of lower friction tonearms. 
lewm
6,770 posts
 
13blm, I like to find consensus, but maybe in fact we don't agree.  All that goo provides dampening mainly, and probably some friction too, but I think the WT claim for very low friction (but not no friction) may be accurate.  My point was that in order to achieve low friction, the bearing is relatively imprecise in the rigidity with which it anchors the pivot point in space.  But yes, I also suppose there are tonearms with lower friction, especially true unipivots, which unfortunately bring to the table their own set of problems. No free lunches in audio, and no pivoted tonearms with no bearings, either.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
4,908 posts
 
Well Tempered designer Bill Firebaugh states that at music frequencies, the silicone fluid in the cup provides a high degree of rigidity, but at very low frequencies (where LP warps live) a desirable amount of freedom of movement. Townshend Rock turntable designer Max Townshend claims the same for the similar fluid in his tables damping trough. Friction from the silicone? Not much I'd wager, especially in comparison with ball bearing-on-ball bearing in captured-bearing arms. 
13blm's avatar
13blm
47 posts
 
I'm just saying there are plenty of arms with less friction, which of course is only one criterion. I think UCLA? came up with the Townsend design and he marketed it. 
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
4,908 posts
 
The research whose findings ended up being incorporated into the Rock turntable was done at the Cranfield Institute of Technology in England. Max Townshend licensed the rights to the design and ran with it, incorporating his own ideas into the different versions of his Townshend Rock. Max has done far more than just market the Rock! He has also designed and manufactured a passive pre-amp, loudspeakers and an add-on super-tweeter, inter-connects and speaker cables, and various versions of his brilliant Seismic isolation products. A very clever fellow!
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