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Anybody Try The Hockey Puck As A Record Clamp/ Results?

Here's a good record to pair with your hockey puck record clamp. :banana:

slapshot-digitalwar.jpg
 
Tromatic said:
I like looks, too, but I spend most of my time listening with my eyes closed. If I could come up with a 1.99 hockey-puck record-clamp that worked as well as your favorite, but looked better, you would pay more?

Had beautiful tuner in the rack a while ago. Almost made up my mind to keep it. Heavy, hi-tech, finely crafted machine, sounded good too. I made the mistake of looking inside the thing. No-f'ing way was I paying that much money for some POS electronics in a big-money case.

"Hi-end" audio marketing has got you nailed, for sure.
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It has to look good on the inside too!

As I said, it does have to perform well. I'm also not discounting the aspect of quality and reliability, those are just a given. To put it more plainly, here is my ranking, from most important to least.

Looks / Aesthetics
Build Quality and Reliability
Performance
Reputation and Resale Value

They are all important to me. I'm just saying that good design and eye-candy are something that I must be satisfied with, and I put it on a high level.

I am curious though, what tuner did you have?
 
Sorry for bumping, I recently had (and still have) the idea of buying a puck and find somewhere (or a guy) to drill a hole in it. Looks? Who cares as long as your equipment sounds great?
Shall I get the 6 oz one for the 10 oz one? 10 oz would be around 284 grams (thanks GoogleCalc) but I did see 370 grams (and even more!) weights one day.
 
cfranz said:
I've used the Hockey puck and it works fine. I found that the only real issue was getting precision drilling the hole, but since the puck was close to the center, this didn't appear to be an appreciable issue...

Got a turn table which comes with it's own clamp now.
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put the puck in the freezer for a few hours, it'll drill a lot cleaner. Also, if you have a set of protractors, it's easy to find the center of a circle for drilling.
 
Friction on the spindle is more important than the weight as there isn't much of a difference btw the two compared to a typical weight. I've used a large rubber stopper with an appropriatly small hole to clamp the heck out my records in the past.
 
soviet123 said:
Sorry for bumping, I recently had (and still have) the idea of buying a puck and find somewhere (or a guy) to drill a hole in it. Looks? Who cares as long as your equipment sounds great?
Shall I get the 6 oz one for the 10 oz one? 10 oz would be around 284 grams (thanks GoogleCalc) but I did see 370 grams (and even more!) weights one day.
Click to expand...

My store-bought Audio Technica record stabilizer weighs about 13 oz, so that would be pretty close to the 370 gram hockey puck.
 
No, no, that 370g and more are 'professional' record clamps.
I bought an orange 10oz. training puck, drilled 9/32" (slightly off center) and had to give it a little push to get it onto the spindle. Haven't listened yet, face is dirty and my headphone pads are velvet.

UPDATE: Well the off-center drilling of the puck sure had some effects... due to uneven weight distribution (I believe) the outer surface of the LP is warped upwards. This is quite obvious as when spinning, the cart (heck, the entire arm) seems to be 'surfing' - riding a sinusoidal waveform. With the puck off, it's still there but much less. Why is the label section of the mat recessed? Does this 'surfing' damage the LP/cart/stylus more than normal playing?
BTW the sound, it seems clearer eh, highs are brighter and the overall presentation seems more engaging and coherent.
 
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Sorry for bumping again... should I buy a new puck, use another way to determine its center and have it drilled (three bucks per puck)?
 
At three bucks per puck, I would give a fresh start a try. That's not very much money, and it's worth a shot.
 
Don't forget to freeze them before play. A bouncy puck on your tt could cost you a game! Also..Canadian pucks are better. With a European puck there is always the chance you may spread the dreaded 'Dutch Hockey Puck disease'.
Canadian hockey puck trees were nearly decimated in the early 70's before import restrictions were in place.:nono::D
 
mike_d... LOL
Anyway. Drilled the other side of the puck (first time didn't go thru 'n thru, seems like a good choice), now it's pretty much centered and the wobble is much less.
I'll try sticking some felt under it... five or six pads... saw some 'high-end' weights having six wooden pods to contact the LP.
 
Unavoidably, talkin' about pucks here...
So what's the science behind the seemingly improved treble and details? Less resonance?
 
Well, by using a clamp or a weight on your record, you are effectively making the record 'one' with the platter. This is beneficial in a lot of cases since some of the byproduct vibrations generated by the mechanical action of the needle in the groove are eliminated.
 
Makes sense. Here's an excerpt of a document that might explain why the music seems a bit dull without the weight/clamp:
It turns out that if you take an audio signal and combine it with itself after a short delay you will get periodic cancellations in the frequency domain. These cancellations will occur for every frequency that is an integer multiple of the delay plus a half wavelength. For example if you delay a signal 1 mSec, the audio will cancel at 500 Hz, 1500 Hz, 2500 Hz, 3500 Hz, etc.
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That short delay might be the oscillation coming back to the cart.
 
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