Anybody used silicon in the Black Widow damping trough?

[crossram]

FWIW
The suspension damping on these ATs follows the spring constant, or inverse to the compliance, the damping will be lower if the compliance is high.
On a few of these needles I have seen the compliance to be higher than it should be, the damping lower than it should be.

This can be adjusted by loosening the compliance screw, increasing the force on the rubber doughnut, and tightening the screw. Though I don´t recommend doing it on an expensive stylus if you haven´t done it before. Test on a cheap stylus.

The difference in sound one hears with tonearm damping is of course that the sound will loose the character from the resonances, it will be more correct with lower distortion, can take a little time to adjust to this.
gusten

I think that you nailed it, gusten. The STP has convinced me that some amount of damping is beneficial.

One of my primary references for evaluating upper frequencies is "Landslide" from Fleetwood Mac's first album. Very few carts get the sparkle of Lindsay Buckingham's guitar just right, and the Signet does, either undamped or with the STP, but looses it with the 30,000cst. I am going to order a variety of viscosities of silicon between 5,000cst and 20,000cst (thanks again Balifly for the link) and see if I can find the sweet spot. Part of the magic of the TK-7LCa for me is the MC-like upper frequency detail and extension (much like the Micro Acoustics in this way, but with a better balanced bass), so I don't want to sacrifice that.

As you know, styli for the TK-7LCa are obtainable, so I am hesitant to experiment with this one regarding the tensioning adjustment. I will probably send it to Van den Hul or Expert Stylus for a retip/tune up at some point.

Thank you for providing expertise and inspiration to keep this exercise started and moving forward.

Dave

 

[wualta]

Another 'eyeball metric' you can use to tell when you've reached the damping sweet spot is to keep an eye on those woofer cones. They won't lie; they'll tell you if you're too far in either direction. Once you know the cartridge is under control, my feeling is you can tweak it in the under direction, but that you pretty much have to accept the sound of the cartridge at that point as "correct". Which of course doesn't mean you have to like it. Season to taste, as always. One of the nice things about fluid damping is that it's always revocable.