2008 RMAF – – – all things analog.

I'll be there...room 464.

"
Mosin,

Room 464 is? Are you showing? If so, what is going to be in the room?"

Dre,

I will be there with my turntable, Saskia. It will have the Schroeder Reference tonearm, so Frank will be in and out. Also, Johnathan Weiss will have his speakers there, and he and I will work the room together. Wire will be Cris Kline's Tel-Wire. Amps will be provided by Techtron, as I understand.

I hope to see you!

Win

Of course, Tektron is the proper way to spell the name of the amps. (It's been a long day.)

It was great being there, and a first for me. Our room sounded as well as we expected, but the best thing of all was being able to put AudiogoN names to faces.

Meanwhile, I am soooo tired.

Win

Hi,

The arm model error was an easy oversight, so it is entirely acceptable in my mind. What is important to me is that a conversation has been spurred on regarding the merits of the frontend of any system. It will always be a "different strokes for different folks" deal, but at least people are beginning to consider the topic on a different plane. That's the key. If I have managed to develop a turntable that can illustrate the difference, I am thrilled. If not, I'll just try harder. In any event, the passion of the music is the driving force.

As far as drive systems go, I am perfectly willing to concede that a fantastic turntable can be built using any of the available means, and perhaps some we haven't thought of, yet. The trick here is to avoid the mistakes of the past, and improve upon what we already know. Of course, it helps to have a few new ideas spring up along the way.

By the way, Doug, I am ecstatic that you and Paul like my turntable, and that you went to the trouble to tell the guys here!

Win

Sonofjim,

" ...Maybe it will lead to similar products at prices more within reach of the majority. Let's hope so."

I hope so, too. Saskia is a different beast, though. Still, maybe someday it will lead to alternatives that are within reach of more people.

Atmasphere,

"At lock-up, the motor draws 0.24Amps, that's 28 watts."

I'm sure Mark will be along, but my understanding of that particular motor is that it is a hysteresis eddy current motor that uses a capacitor, so that it can be run on single phase mains. Otherwise, it is a three phase motor. I believe Mark has made controllers for it which are successfully used by some Japanese customers. Anyway, the current draw is near thirty watts, but the output is substantially diminished because an eddy current motor is particularly wasteful with energy. It purposefully wastes the bulk of the energy by leaking between phases. This may appear to be a bad thing, but the motor is actually smoother running as a result...cogging is far less apparent. So, I take it that Mark was speaking of "applied" power, not consumption. My motor is even more wasteful, but it has twice the torque. The benefit of both motors would be more appropriately considered to be their moment of inertia, which is, as your example notes, rather impressive. To sum it all up, synchronous used in turntables are typically less wasteful than hysteresis eddy current ones, so one that is in a smaller package can actually be more powerful when measured by ordinary means.

Macrojack,

"I think the Saskia is merely a refinement of an old but sound approach to turntable design with over the top craftsmanship and optimized materials. Am I wrong about that?"

Yes, and no. It is true that it is traditional in many ways, but I tried to break some eggs, too. There are some new twists.

"I use a Technics SP-10 MK II because it is the most cost effective option for me. I can't pay the price of a Saskia.
And would I want to? Is it that much better than mine?"

Would Saskia be a substantial difference to you? That would be for you to decide, of course. One person who does own the SP-10 MKII has listened to Saskia extensively, however.

Here...
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1220542524

All that said, I believe the most important thing is that you enjoy the music for its passion. When I had nothing more than an old Dual 1019, which is many times inferior to the SP-10, I still listened to records, and I enjoyed them. It is nice being able to actually hear the decay of a piano note, however. :)

Best,
Win