The Well Tempered Lab Design - Accurate music reproduction over engineering trumpet blowing.

Controlling The Mechanical Resonances Of The Tone-Arm

The Well Tempered tone-arm does not have a bearing in the normal sense. 

The Simplex mk2's bearing has zero clearance and damping for un-rivalled performance. The tone-arm is constructed with a golf ball partially immersed in high viscosity silicone fluid. Golf balls are very precisely made and are well-suited for this application. The degree of damping is adjustable.

Controlling The Resonance Within The Arm Tube

The 9 inch arm tube of the Simplex mk2 is filled with a special grade of sand to eliminate any resonances within the tube. This technique is very effective and is unique to all Well Tempered designs.

Rotational Stability Of The Spindle

The Well Tempered round spindle rotates in a triangle hole of Teflon and the corner of the triangle is oriented to the motor. This arrangement causes the spindle to rotate in a zero clearance bearing. If the spindle is in the normal round hole, the contact with the bearing surface is made of one point, a condition which can cause rotational instability. With the round spindle rotating in a triangle hole, contact is made at two points resulting in zero clearance and a high degree of stability.

Bearing Noise

The Well Tempered bearing uses a Teflon thrust bearing. The stainless steel spindle has a precision point and rests into a small hole in the Teflon thrust bearing to achieve very low noise.

Acrylic Platter

The Well Tempered platter is acrylic which have found to be very mechanically and acoustically neutral. In addition to having desirable mechanical properties, this material is relatively heavy resulting in increased moment of inertia for lower flutter and wow.

Drive Belt

The belt is a polyester filament and has a diameter of 0.004 inches. To use this, the motor pulley of a custom design to accommodate the knot. The sonic benefit (over traditional rubber belts) is remarkable.

Motor and Motor Drive

The small DC motor is driven by a bespoke torque servo and is mounted to the plinth in a ring of isolation material. The combination of belt, motor, motor drive electronics, and isolation results in outstandingly low flutter and wow.