y2keglide
Super Member
My arm board on my Technics SL-1100 is guess-timating 3/16" thick (formed edges make it appear 3/8" thick).
The arm board is the "board to mount the arm on".
The thickness of Bill's arm board coincides with the need for his arm to clear the platter, and for proper VTA (vertical tracking angle).
If you put one that thick on your table, you'd:
1) raise the arm much too high, causing the arm to not be parallel with the platter, thus keeping your VTA way off for proper tracking of your cart and eminent ruination of your records, as well as poor sound
2) weight the Thorens suspension at the arm board, causing need for adjustment at best, or causing imbalance to throw off the suspension equilibrium and wreaking havoc with your table's performance.
I believe the Empire is a fixed board- I do not believe at the time that Empire or any table was using suspension (but that's not certain).
Thanks you for the explanation kind sir,I'm learning here in baby steps but I'm learning.