Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

Beautiful plinth Oregon, lucky friend to have you building an entire and Priceless Mighty Lenco for him!! If he doesn't appreciate it, send him over and I'll kick his ass ;-).

Hi Mario, boy that is some project you have on the go!! Grease is the word. Apply wads and wads of ugly, drippy, gooey grease until it runs out and plops on the floor in smelly unsightly piles. Then clean up the mess and leave it alone. This will reduce chatter considerably. Also, the more ball bearings there are, the greater the potential (and reality) of chatter, so I would also advise you to reduce the number to the barest minimum for safety, stability and functioning, if this is possible. I think that even with all this you will lose some focus and dynamics (micro and macro), but perhaps, given you have a lazy susan, you can make this up by making the plinth especially HUuuuuUuuGE!!

I just scored a Fidelity Research FRT-5 phono transformer with 3 inputs (2 MC and 1 MM which simply bypasses the transformer), which means that with it and my Sony TAE-5450 I can run 5 (!!!!!) tonearm/cartridge combos into my SP-8, 3 of those direct into the SP-8's excellent phono input!! Yippeeee!!!!! At the moment the best I can do is 4, which means I'd better start on a new plinth for the Garrard!! Maaaadnnneeessss....:-)!!

Just got myself a Rega RB300 arm...time to see if I can find the nice piece of purpleheart I got about 18 months ago and get making an armboard...

Mario,
The sides are one piece of Maple. With a table saw, I simply cut a VERY shallow slit and placed some inlay. This is top secret, so don't tell anybody! The sky is the limit with the inlay. Plenty to choose from.

Jean,
A true compliment coming from the Master himself.
I will take you up "if he doesn't appreciate it..." I plan to post a photo of his ugly mug, his name and his address. We can all go over and ...
While we're at it, we'll relieve him of his fine album collection too!

That's hilarious Mario - just plop the whole thing down on a VPI :) I concur with Jean's answers above - however you might consider putting the lazy susan under an intermediate base which seperates it from the Lenco itself.

Now to coriolis effect - have you considered putting the TT in the middle of the room and beaming yourself to the arm you wish to use?

Hi Mike,

Funny you should mention the middle of the room placement… Grant and I were just talking about such an idea the other night (he’s kind enough to humor me by listening to my wild schemes). He’s at the final design point for his plinth and is considering two or three arm mounts.

Well, in short order the brainstorming on the ergonomics of multi-arm use, got around to an “Island Altar” in the middle of the room (a phono pre by necessity in the pedestal base). Well, since neither one of us are bachelors, that ain’t going to happen. But it was nice to bask in the warm glow of that religious moment.

But seriously, the more I work with this marble, the more I find it to be an excellent isolator in upward transmissions (footfalls) and I suspect, in the other direction as well. If the double coriolis or free-range Lenco needs a third, decoupled marble round, so be it. However, I’m not sure whether I have a full handle on how coupling or decoupling in the footing realm effects “focus”. At what point does isolation become overdone and promote focus robbery? And if a degree of base coupling is needed for focus, isn’t there invariably some rattler down the line?

By the way, Mike, if you’re still in the marble hunt and 1- you still get back to the NYC area to visit family or friends: 2- have patience to wait out the next time I’m in the metro area doing the same, I can drop off a couple of slabs for you. (I find that marble as ballast helps focus my ’83 Rabbit on long distance cruises.)