How dose your plinth sound?

Well Bill, this is right up my alley, because I had 2 of the 3 different plinths you mentioned, right on my very own TT.

The acrylic base sounds nice, and looks very nice, but it is not even in the same ballpark with the wood/lead-shot base, sonically.

When I changed my plinth from acrylic to Cocobolo lead-shot weighted base, it was like I had gotten a totally new turntable. This was not a subtle change. It was very large, and probably the largest single change that has happened in my system.

First, the overall sound is just alot better in every way. The biggest things that you notice is that the bass response is a hell of alot better with the wood/shot base, and the detail is better, and the noise floor is better. So are the dynamics. The presentation is less harsh.

This is really a no contest issue. Any deaf person could hear this. It is not a debatable subject. Cocobolo with lead-shot weighting totally kills acrylic.

The plain hardwood base changes things based on how dense the wood is, and the cocobolo seems to be the winner in this category. It will do better than acrylic, and not as good as lead-shot weighted cocobolo. It kind of splits the difference.

There is a certain balance that must be achieved between a "Live" and "Dead" sound. Too much deadening, and it sounds dead. Too much liviliness, and it sounds too live(meaning harsh and in your face).

The issue of plinth materials has been a very big area of research in the Teres designs, and I can tell you that the upgrades in this area will give more sonic benefit than any other Teres upgrade. This is why I am promoting getting the wood/lead plinths at the beginning, instead of upgrading to it, if you can. It is a monster improvement, and has more impact on the sound than the weighted platter does.

My Michell has an aluminium plinth standing on plexiglass spider and weighed with lead masked with plastic for safety purposes. I placed an adjustable toes onto Walker disks also loaded with lead that dissipate even more of parasite resonance.
Overall the sound is detailed with clear midrange and musical.
Bass is almost botomless.
I believe that if I upgrade the power supply for VC I'll even benefit much more towards bass resolution and clarity.

Bill,
This is a great question! And one that I had been curious about. Thanks for bringing it up!

And thanks to you, Twl (as ever) for your sharing your views and experiences.

I guess what im looking for is some kind of baseline. Its interesting to here that your lead massed cocobolo plinth is a significant improvement. But is this because of the wood or the lead? Is the lead shot in the plinth in a similar arraignment as in the platter, or is it loaded in a different way? As a wood worker my mind keeps coming around to the wood and its use in turntables. I look at Schroeder arms and his use of wood and am fascinated that this is his choice of materiel. Reading in another forum, Schroeder suggested that there was little difference(sonically) in the type of wood used in his arms and different types of wood were only used for there mass! This is very surprising to me as the difference in “tap tone” between cocobolo and say balsa (both used in Schroeder arms) is enormous. By the way if Shroeder arms sound ANYTHING!! like how they look they must be close to audio nirvana!! But i digress ...... So what is the biggest source of unwanted vibes in the plinth, the platter/ record vibes or the cartridge/ arm vibes?......

Bill

In the Teres, the base is shot-loaded differently than the platter. There are large holes drilled cross-wize and capped with the final sections of cocobolo after filling.

The answer to your question about which vibrations are more important to control, is "all of them". All the platter vibrations, or as much as possible, should be dissipated or channeled through the spindle and bearing and plinth to ground. In the cartridge/arm combo, the same is true. Dissipate or channel through the plinth to ground.

During the Teres project and beyond, many materials were tested for plinth usage. So far the Cocobolo and lead shot top the list. For your "baseline", the denser the wood, the better the use for the plinth. Whatever vibrations do survive the wood, are to be dissipated as heat in the microscopic movement of the lead shot. The lead shot also adds the needed mass for augmenting this style of turntable. It would be horrible on a Linn. Different designs need different things to help them work.

You first need to understand what is involved in turntable design, before you can address what types of vibrations to control, and where and how to control them. Not all design parameters are applicable to every design.