That is a great question. I only recently had the nerve to remove mine from the mount and I too saw those orange foam looking pieces inside the springs on two of the mounts.. I wondered if they were just fallen apart or what they were. I wonder if anyone has a replacement for this product.. Now if I could only find the hum when you touch the parts, its not awful but rather noisy when the arm sets down on the brush.. I also see in the manual that the audio cables are supposed to have an RCA type plug on both ends? I wonder if some may have not had that but been direct wired as I looked to see if I could easily replace mine with a better set thinking they might be part of the hum issue. When I looked at the wires the seemed to go into the electrical section as if they were hard wired on that end, but I may not have looked closely enough.
Early in this thread it is suggested that more often or not the source of hum on many Miracords originates in the headshell.
This was indeed the case for my 50H.
Start back at the beginning of this thread and re-read the posts.
You should find some good advice there.
Somewhere I had read that generally speaking any open celled foam would work as a replacement in turntables where the foam in spring suspension points had deteriorated.
However it seems to me that the purpose of foam used inside springs would be to dampen the movement of the springs (like the coil-over shock absorbers on automobiles) and keep the top plate and platter from bouncing around like a jack-in-the-box whenever you walk past your turntable.
The conclusion I draw from this is that if your turntable is properly isolated from footfalls and other sources of vibration the foam isn't really necessary.
I know the Thorens suspension is different, but this passage from the Analogue Dept raises an interesting point about the desirability of leaving foam inserts in place :
"
foam is in contact with both the fixed stud and the spring simultaneously, it serves to transmit resonance from the motor plate into the sub-chassis. By removing the foam, isolation is improved. ".
Modification to many Lenco heavy platter turntables often include tightening the top plate tightly to a heavy plinth so that the springs no longer play a part in isolating the turntable.
Anyone have any informed insights or opinions on this?
Foam or no foam?
Art
