Close-up of a stylus and LP record vinyl grooves

"Vinyl remains unsurpassed for reproducing music,” said Mark Döhmann, Founder of Döhmann Audio. To convey vinyls rich, nuanced potential a turntable must have precise speed control and operate without producing mechanical or electronic noise. The goal is an uncompromised signal emerging from a silent background, resulting from precisely designed construction that eliminates noise and gives precision speed control for ideal playback.

This goal has been very closely approximated with the release of the Helix One and Helix Two turntables, representing a breakthrough in analog playback design and execution. These turntables are a showcase for micro-signal architecture, a new way of thinking borne from the world of ultra-precision sub-atomic research, where the removal of unwanted vibration is critical to achieving precision results.

The Helix One and Helix Two turntables reward the listener with the closest facsimile to master tape yet realized. Their specifications demand the ultimate in noise suppression and vibration isolation systems, allowing the turntables and pick-up arms to deliver the micro-signals buried in the vinyl grooves of LPs.

Every aspect of the turntables' design requires the preservation of the micro-signals found in the grooves of the LP to be retrieved with as little modification and distortion as physically and electronically possible, added Döhmann. The turntables incorporate a number of engineering advances to deliver the lowest resonance profile for any pickup arm and LP combination.

These engineering advances include: a) mechanical crossover technology; b) a tri-modal platter system; c) an edge-damping ring; d) a tone arm damping system; e) resonance-tuned suspension; f) a diamond-like coating, amorphous material-bearing friction modifier; g) high-torque, adjustable-drive speed selections; and h) a velocity adjustment lock.

But what contributes to making the Helix One and Helix Two turntables truly unique is their highly precise, fully-integrated vibration isolation system.

The Need For Vibration Isolation
Vibration isolation in the playback process of high-end audio systems is crucial. Any external vibration, no matter how slight, even someone walking near the turntable or vibration from floor-mounted speakers, is sensed by the turntables stylus and affects the sound being played back from the record. Capacitors, resistors, transistors, tube amplifiers and other electronic components are likewise sensitive to vibration.

Analog audio is a very detailed and information rich storage and retrieval mechanism, continued Döhmann. The enemy of retrieval information is vibration, which can modulate with the needle as it works its way through the groove. If you can remove exterior vibration and allow the needle to operate in an optimally quiet method or platform, then you will get more information out because your noise is much lower.

Full article...

More at our Audio & Turntable Vibration Isolation Applications page...

Featured Product: BM-10 Bench Top Vibration Isolation Platform

• Horizontal frequencies are weight dependent.
  
• Horizontal frequency of 1.5 Hz is achieved at the upper limit of the payload range.
  
• At the lower limits of the payload range the horizontal frequency is approximately 2.5 Hz.
  
• Vertical frequency is tunable to 0.5 Hz throughout the payload range.

The BM-10 bench top platform offers 10-100 times better performance than a full size air table in a package only 4.6 inches tall and 12 inches wide and deep. It also does this without any air or electricity!

This vibration isolation platform is extremely easy to use and offers extreme performance. It offers a 1.5Hz horizontal natural frequency and our signature 0.5 Hz vertical natural frequency.

There are only two adjustments. The BM-10 is perfect for new generations of small SPM's that require the highest performance in a very compact system.

This is the thinnest, smallest footprint, most portable, and most user-friendly isolator ever offered that is capable of delivering this level of performance.They can also be made cleanroom and vacuum capatible.

Pricing & Specifications

(2016 Legacy Article) The tunable microwave-frequency alternating current scanning tunneling microscope (ACSTM) has opened the possibility of recording local spectra and local chemical information on insulator surfaces, much like the conventional scanning tunneling microscope (STM) has done for metals and semiconductors..

Spectroscopy in the microwave frequency range enables unrealizable measurements on conducting substrates, such as the rotational spectroscopy of a single adsorbed molecule. Developed in the early 1990s by Professor Paul Weiss, the nano-pioneering Director of the Weiss Group, a nanotechnology research unit of UCLAs California NanoSystems Institute, the ACSTMs single-molecule measurement techniques have illuminated unprecedented details of chemical behavior, including observations of the motion of a single molecule on a surface, and even the vibration of a single bond within a molecule. Such measurements are critical to understanding entities ranging from single atoms to the most complex protein assemblies.We use molecular design, tailored syntheses, intermolecular interactions and selective chemistry to direct molecules into desired positions to create nanostructures, to connect functional molecules to the outside world, and to serve as test structures for measuring single or bundled molecules, said David McMillan, Lead Technician at the Weiss Group.

Critical to understanding these variations has been developing the means to make tens- to hundreds-of-thousands of independent single-molecule measurements in order to develop sufficiently significant statistical distributions, while retaining the heterogeneity inherent in the measurements.

Vibration isolation
To achieve these nano-level chemical and spectroscopic data sets, the ACSTM must be positioned in an ultra-stable operating environment, one free of low-frequency vibrations.The lab was using almost exclusively optical tables on pneumatic isolation, said McMillan.One of our big problems has been space constraint. We needed smaller pneumatic optical tables to fit. But as the air tables get smaller, their vibration isolation performance diminishes.

Full article...

The compound microscope has evolved from an instrument providing simple contrast viewing, into super-resolution systems capable of sub-diffraction accuracy. Its two platforms, upright and inverted, can be found in most laboratories doing cellular research, such as in biotech and pharmaceutical. Upright microscopes are used for viewing glass slides, and inverted for viewing live cells in Petri dishes. Despite its imaging advances, the basic architecture of the compound microscope has not substantially been modified in centuries.

This has now changed, with the recent release of the Revolve hybrid compound microscope, developed by Echo Laboratories (Echo), which has set a new precedent in microscope usability and design. The Revolve combines the full functionality of both upright and inverted microscopes in one instrument, and can switch between the two imaging modes relatively swiftly and easily. This gives the flexibility to view many types of samples with one microscope to a level of 300 350 nanometers resolution.

“More than 70 percent of labs end up having both inverted and upright microscopes,” said Jeff Huber, Director of Sales for Echo Laboratories. “But both uprights and inverts use similar objectives, illuminators, position systems and cameras. Why duplicate all of these expensive components? And why take up valuable lab space with two instruments? So, Echo Laboratories engineered a way to merge these two systems into one unified instrument, which is the Revolve microscope.”

Brightfield, Phase Contrast and Epifluorescence Imaging with iPad and Wireless Upload
his is a compound, infinity-path microscope, with applications for brightfield, phase contrast, and epi-fluorescence imaging. Current glass selection includes the entire line of Olympus objectives. Due to the unique nature of the upright/inverted combination, both a high-NA and long-working-distance transmitted-light condensers are available to support phase and brightfield. A high-accuracy locking mechanism is used to securely hold the condenser assembly in place, while still allowing for easy removal by a single lever.

Full article...