One of our good customers has started writing a blog which he calls
A GUIDE FOR THE BUDDING ANALOG AUDIOPHILE
Below is a review Robert Brook wrote for one of our favorite tweaks. We have most — but not all — of our equipment sitting on one of these stands. We were big fans of the earlier model all the way back in the early 2000s, the kind that had air bladders inside for isolation and that you had to pump air into with a bicycle pump.
The unfortunate aspect of that design was the fact that the amount of air in the bladders had a profound effect on the sound quality of the system. We would pump up the thing, and then listen, and if the sound wasn’t right we would let some air out. We would do this a couple of times, and if the sound kept getting worse, we would pump the thing up again and start over.
For every shootout. The air pressure changed during the day with the heat, and the bladders did not hold air all that well, so you had to do a lot of pumping and air releasing if you wanted to get the best sound.
Crazy, huh? And that’s in combination with all the VTA adjustments that were needed for each title.
Fortunately for you, dear reader, this design is set and forget, with no adjustments to make (although I have some advice for you if you buy one from us). We ordered one to keep around so that our customers can try it in their own homes before buying one. It should be here in a few months. They are hard to get these days, like lots of things that come from across the pond.
I would, however, like to take issue with the title of this commentary. Getting rid of distortion in your system and getting higher resolution sound, which is what this platform can help you do, is key to every kind of music.
It’s also key to getting your system to the next level, the level at which your mediocre modern pressings seem to fall further and further behind your best vintage pressings. If you keep making improvements such as the ones Robert Brook has been advocating on his blog, at some point all the criticisms we make about these new pressings become obvious. Self-evident even. You won’t need me to point them out to you. You’ll hear them just fine on your own. Many, if not most, of our customers already do, which is why they buy records from us that don’t sound anything like most of those Modern Remastered Records.
The Townshend Seismic Isolation Platform IS The KEY to CLASSICAL!