"the bounce" or more to the point , how to acheive it.

yay , got the sme mounted onto my thorens with a lot of fiddeling and a lot of worn out drill bits trying to get through the carbon fibre arm board.
so everything is up and running but without the *singing* i was expecting so now i need to tune the suspension.
its a three point spring , suspended shassis set up.
i know that i need to level the tt then bring the suspension so that the platter is level and suspended without fouling and also the springs need centered without any lateral movment but im buggered if i can get it right.
any pointers on how to get my bounce right?
at the moment its more of a wobble than a bounce so any advise would be greatly appreciated.
also just how crucial the the sound is *the bounce*?

 

You don't want a wobble, you want an up and down bounce (how much is largely down to taste, it's easy to obsess about it but it's not worth the worry). How old are the springs? They might need replacing if you can't get a good tight bounce without too much lateral movement.

-- Ian

 

Is your 166 the same as a 160 if so they don't bounce as say a system or sondek if that's what you're looking for, i.e. not freely suspended, from my experience about a ¼ to ½ an inch of thread shows as a rough guide, what modifications have you done to it.

Stuart

 

Although I don't have any intention of breaking my LP12 to try this out for myself, I would be interested to know if during a 'reasonably' blind listening test whether a reviewer would be able to detect the difference between two identical Record decks, one that has a Perfect ' pistonic' up and down bounce and another that had a very slight wobble.
I very much doubt that i would invest much money in that perticualr bet.

By all means do spend a little time and try your best at getting the bounce as vertical and unifiorm as you can but don't agonise over it for too long...