I've lived with the Laser Turntable for nearly one year now, and tested it like crazy against my reference system (Simon Yorke S7, SME 309 with damping kit and Graham IC-70 phono cables, Lyra Helikon SL, Minus K vibration isolation platform).
First, just a quick clarification: the signal from the Laser Turntable is analog from laser beam to output. There are some digital components, but they are controlling the laser and carriage motion to track the grooves. Repeat: the Laser Turntable is ANALOG all the way.
Here's the bottom line: if you know the sound of live music - the timbre, harmonics, the transients - you cannot beat the Laser Turntable. My Yorke/SME/Lyra combination can't beat the Laser Turntable in that department. If you are in love with a dead silent background and listen to mostly recordings that were mixed from multi-track, you may not appreciate what the Laser Turntable can do. If you listen to acoustic works with simple mic'ing (Blumlein) - the Laser Turntable is pretty amazing in its ability to recreate the event.
The Laser Turntable does require CLEAN records. I use a Keith Monks RCM. But once you've cleaned a record on a good RCM, for subsequent plays a quick going over with a Hunt record brush or equivalent is all you need.
The Laser Turntable plays black records only. The more worn or damaged a record, the noiser the Laser Turntable is compared to a conventional stylus. On the other hand, really mint vinyl is quiet. The nice thing is that really mint vinyl does stay really mint with the Laser Turntable - "No Needle, No Wear" as ELP proclaims.
I think image stability and specificity is a little bit better with my Yorke/SME/Lyra combination. However, there are details that the Laser Turntable captures that the Yorke/SME/Lyra does not do as well. If you are looking for "bloom", the Laser Turntable doesn't really give you that (my RIAA preamp is the phono section of a Boulder 1010 preamp). The Laser Turntable might be a little less dynamic as well - but honestly I'd be splitting hairs on that call.
What I like most about the Laser Turntable:
1. convenience (random track access), and no wear
2. detail
3. no set-up (ie. VTF, VTA, SRA, antiskate, etc.)
4. no tracking error (it's basically a linear tracker)
5. convenience (drop the record in the drawer and hit play)
In a perfect cost-no-object world, I would have both a conventional turntable and the Laser Turntable. Each gives you a different perspective on the music. I like the dynamics and the silent background of the conventional turntable/stylus, and I really like the life-like detail of the Laser Turntable. The Laser Turntable just sounds right.
From what I can tell, the Laser Turntable is more popular among musicians than among audiophiles - probably because of the Laser Turntable's ability to re-produce such life-like detail.
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I apologize in advance - this is a long post...
I absolutely have kept the Yorke S7 - love it. I added a Clearaudio Syncro to it, which improved things. The Minus K vibration isolator is amazing - if you thought the Vibraplane was cool...
To answer your question Tbg, I'd say I listen 70% Yorke, 30% ELP. This is mostly driven by the nature of my record collection.
When doing critical listening, I will use both the ELP and Yorke. The Yorke/Lyra is quieter without a doubt, a bit more dynamic than the LT, and the soundstage is wider and imaging more stable with the Yorke/Lyra. But the timbre of the LT is so spot on, I just love it for acoustic / voice / piano (especially) / guitar and so on. And the LT can reveal more detail. It just sounds "right", and I just learn to live with the lighter dynamics and slight noise.
The LT is a different listening experience. I would not call it better or worse than a high-end TT, just different.
Rock, Pop - pretty much anything electrified or heavily mixed - I listen to on the Yorke. If I want dynamics and want to "rock", defintely the Yorke.
Anything acoustic I may listen to on either. If imaging is important to enjoying a particular piece, then it goes on the Yorke. If the "sound" of the instruments are important on a particular piece, it goes on the ELP. If I want detail, then ELP. Often you just have to try both to see which one you like better - sometimes which one I will prefer is surprising and unpredictable.
If the record is especially valuable and I want to listen to it several times in a row - it goes on the ELP. Knowing that there is absolutely no wear or damage to the grooves is worth something to me.
If I'm feeling lazy (ie. set-up of VTF, SRA, azimuth, etc.), the record may very well go onto the ELP. I have several cartridges in addition to the Lyra Helikon for coarse groove (78s), microgroove and monos - so sometimes swapping cartridges can be a pain and I just want immediate gratification.
People make a big deal about the noise of the ELP. If you have records in good condition, the difference in noise levels between the Yorke and ELP are negligible. If the record has seen some abuse or is dirty - yeah, the noise is more noticable. A good record cleaner will fix the dirt problem.
As for service, that has not been an issue. Last December I shipped my ELP to Japan for a motherboard upgrade. No problem, they turned it around in a week and I was only without the ELP for 2 weeks in total. The upgrade was also motivated by the development of an audible wow-and-flutter problem with the ELP. ELP rectified the wow-and-flutter at the same time at no charge. NOTE: My laser turntable is over 5 years old and has traveled cross country a few times as well.
The latest ELP mother board changed from socketed chips to soldered for the machine control, along with some better components in the audio section. I found that this improved the overall performance. To my mind, ELP is supporting their customers well - after all, I can get repairs and upgrades 5 years later.
I understand that the US distributor keeps an inventory of ELP Laser Turntables and offers US/Canada customers very good service. Although it still remains true that any service to the machine can only be performed in Japan.
The upgrade and wow-and-flutter repair with shipping to/from Japan cost me $1800. This has been my only expense in 5 years.
How much do you spend on cartridge and styli over a similar 5 year period? Cost of ownership of a Laser Turntable is actually relatively low once you factor in cartridges/styli, especially if you use your TT a lot or play modern and historical records.
As for the Smart tale, I think that there were some unrealistic expectations and some poor business judgment on both sides of the Pacific that led to the falling out. Smart may have expected the ELP Laser Turntable to be more like a high volume consumer product, and was surprised to find that it was really a low-volume build-on-demand service-in-Japan-only product. ELP may have falsely set that expectation - who really knows.
All I know, the ELP has done well by me. If I had to have one turntable, and one only, I'd keep the Yorke and lose the ELP. The only reason for such a decision is that the ELP is not good as a sole turntable because it cannot deal with colored vinyl and a conventional TT sounds better with more abused vinyl. But I really enjoy the luxury of having both!
FYI: for anyone considering a Yorke, you'll find that Simon Yorke is on an extended sabbatical from building turntables so that he can pursue his poetry and art. No advance notice, nothing. I think obsessing about the long-term health of ELP is no more a crap shoot than any other high-end audio product. I'm not saying that longevity is a non-issue with ELP, I'm just saying that you need to be realistic about these matters. Of course, the LT is much more difficult to service than a traditional TT, and the MTBF is lower.
In fact, I'm strongly considering upgrading from the LT-1XRC to the LT-2XRC so that I can play more of my odd-sized pre-RIAA records and shellacs.
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http://www.minusk.com
I use the BM-1.
The Minus K vibration isolation platform outperforms air isolation by a factor of 10-100x. Air is fairly "stiff" (which is why it works well as a bearing, like in linear tracking tonearms and some of the high-end turntables). However, stiff is what you don't want your vibration isolator to be.
The Minus K vibration isolation platforms have resonant frequencies as low as 0.5 Hz horizontal AND vertical. Air systems at best will achieve 2-3 Hz resonance, and the big buck active isolation systems are still greater than 1 Hz resonance. This means that the Minus K isolators provide 90% attenuation of vibrations at 2 Hz, and 99% at 5 Hz, and 99.7% at 10 Hz.
Minus K isolators are passive - no air pumps, no electricity required. And they are light. The only way the air-based isolators achieve their 2-3 Hz resonance is by using high mass. So air tables are heavy, no question.
With the Minus K isolator, I can actually put it on my equipment rack and not worry about crushing it or having to reinforce the floor.
The 0.5 Hz resonance frequency has some other benefits. The isolation frequency is so low that it can isolate against low frequency building motions. Minus K is the only isolator I am aware of that will allow you to operate a SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) or AFM (Atomic Force Microscope) on an upper floor of a building.
I've talked to David Platus, the president of Minus K, and he understands vibration isolation better than anyone I'v met. The Stanford nanotechnology lab has replaced all of their air isolators with Minus K isolators to increase the resolution of their STMs (Scanning Tunnelin Microscopes). I had the good fortune of being invited to see the isolators in action - very impressive.
How does it sound?
Imaging is very focused, and there is a bit more space between instruments. The noise floor seems to have dropped a little (I didn't actually measure this). However, the bass seemed to be a bit softer. A quick call to Minus K, and they suggested I ballast the system. So I added a 75-pound granite surface plate between the isolator and the TT. This indeed did firm up the bass.
The WAF is a bit low. But I understand that Minus K is coming out with some new models with the same performance as my BM-1, but in a lower profile - which should have higher WAF.
Here's the best part - this is an industrial solution which can only be purchased directly from Minus K. What that means to us audiophiles is that we are not paying the 50% mark-up that high-end audio dealers hit us with (mind you, I don't mind paying the mark-up when my dealer earns it through good advice and loaners). So for less money than a Vibraplane, and without the grief of the noise and power, and with more performance, the Minus K solution cannot be beat.
Also, if you have problems with walking across floors and having to tip-toe up to your TT - this is not the case with Minus K. I read in a Minus K customer testimonial that a half-dozen scientists - as their final acid test - decided to jump as hard as they could on the floor around their atomic force microscope to see if the vibrations would be transmitted to the microscope. Jump as they did, the AFM never saw any of the vibrations.
I have visited the Minus K booth at various tradeshows (most recently Semicon, for the semiconductor industry). They have a really nice demonstration where they place the isolator on a shaker table, and on the isolator they place a free-standing quarter on its edge. The table is shaking pretty violently with 0.5" displacements. The quarter does not move, it just sits their balancing on its edge. They have also done this with a glass of water - you don't see any ripple in the water. Minus K products are very popular in physics labs as well, where they need superior vibration isolation for experiments.
Once again, I apologize for a long and perhaps overzealous post. But I am truly convinced that if you want real vibration isolation - just bypass all the audiophile "hobbyist" solutions that can cost as much as $10k, and go straight for the real deal - Minus K.
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The BM-1 comes in a version that supports up to 700 lbs. I have the 150BM-1 (up to 160 lbs) which is enough to hold my 75 lb Yorke + 75 lb granite surface plate.
But, yes, the BM-6 is only rated up to 105 lbs.
I'm wondering if Minus K can customize a BM-6 for heavier payloads? How much does your Walker weigh?
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The Minus K BM-1 has 0.5 Hz Horizontal and Vertical resonance, whereas the BM-6 has higher resonance frequencies. The BM-6 is like an air table (but without the air). The BM-1 is unlike anything else when it comes to isolation, outperforming pretty much everything.
Rumor has it that Minus K has a low profile model with 0.5 Hz Horiz/Vert in the works. But I imagine the payloads will be insufficient for the Walker.
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The Minus K products are based on their patented Negative Stiffness Technology. From a physics point of view, the spring equation is F = k * x, where k is the "spring constant" or "stiffness". Minus K gets their name because they have found a way to implement "negative stiffness" or "minus k" if you will. So, yes, the Minus K system is based on a sophisticated mechanism that includes springs.
I know little about Halcyonics except that it is an active isolator (hence it requires feedback). I just went to the Halcyonics website, and checked their specs, and Minus K still outperforms.
The Minus K set-up is pretty easy, you just dial in the payload (literally, there is a knob and a payload balance indicator), and you're done. It looks like the Halcyonics requires software and other tweaking to make it work.
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Albertporter - does the weight of the Walker include the air isolator? Or is the 400 lbs just the platter/bearings/plinth/tonearm/motor? If you replace the air isolator with the Minus K isolator, you will probably strip out a lot of weight (and wires, and pneumatics) and probably save some space, too. I would imagine that the Walker platter/bearings/plinth/tonearm/motor would be well under 200 lbs. I know that my Yorke is about 75 lbs, which includes a 25 lb platter - all the rest is bearings/motor/plinth.
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The Minus K vs Halcyonics would be a great test! Interestingly, they are based in Menlo Park, only a stone's throw from me (in San Jose). I'm wondering if Halcyonics would be open to providing a loaner for the test.
What's the Halcyonics cost? I need to dredge up what I paid for my Minus K BM-1 as part of the comparison.
Does anyone in A'gonville have one?
I noticed that the Halcyonics has a max payload of 220 lbs. On the other hand, the Halcyonics has a torsional stiffener, and the Minus K does not. Not sure how critical the torsional stiffener is, but when I talked to Minus K about this before I purchased the BM-1, they said it would be possible to add torsional stiffness/isolation to the BM-1 if I found it to be necessary. So far I've been fine without it.
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Eldartford, see patent 4,870,631 on www.uspto.gov - that might answer your question about whether the ELP laser turntable senses rate of change or if the output is proportional to displacement. If I understand the Abstract correctly, it appears to be proportional to displacement. But one probably has to read more of the patent claims to verify that. |
From a spec point of view, the Minus K passive isolator should be able to go head-to-head with the Halcyonics. The Minus K achieves 50 dB isolation at 10 Hz compared to the 40 dB of the Halcyonics. Also, the Minus K has a 0.5 Hz resonance, and the Halcyonics starts isolating at 0.6 Hz. For building isolation, the Minus K can handle fairly large horizontal and vertical displacements - 0.5 inch vertical and 0.75 inch horizontal travel. I'm curious what travel the Halcyonics has. Is NABS open to doing an AB comparison of the Halcyonics versus the Minus K isolators? I use the BM-1, and in my own testing have found that it outperforms air. It would be interesting to see how it stacks up against active isolation. How much does a Halcyonics isolator cost?
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Thanks NABS. I think the Minus K low profile (4-inch) platforms run about $2800. Payload capacity is a little over one hundred pounds for the low profile models, but goes up to 700 pounds with standard models like the BM-1 (which I think has a list price of $3650 or so). I'm excited to see the use of industrial vibration isolation equipment in high-end audio - I think Minus K and Halcyonics are the "real deal" when it comes to getting the absolute best mechanical isolation possible.
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