High quality AC turntable motor


I am looking for a high grade AC motor for my Townshend Elite Rock turntable.
The current motor is specified to run at 110v 250rpm. I reckon that it's got very little torque. I have considered the phillips and the premotec - but they appear to offer no real alternative so far as specs are concerned with what I have.

I have seen a couple of motors on the RS Online website by the likes of Berger, and Crouzet. The Crouzet motor intrigues due to it's high torque rating. my concern is whether or not it is noisy, and vibrates a lot.

Does anyone have experience with these motors? or does anyone have any suitable suggestions?

I intend to try out a few different power supplies on the deck at some point.
lohanimal

Showing 5 responses by john_tracy

I would consider a PS that has two outputs, one for each field coil of the motor. It should provide the user with the ability to trim the phase angle between the two outputs. The benefits of such an arrangement? The ability to reduce vibrations to almost zero. Removing the vibrations could provide more sonic improvement than a motor change. A high torque motor that vibrates will damage the sound more than a low torque motor's vibes.
Kevin Carter of K&K Audio has a prototype PS that has two outputs with phase angle adjustment. The only thing holding him back from releasing this as a kit is the need to assemble one so he can write up the instructions. If enough people were to email him that might provide the motivation to finish this project. The price of the kit should be reasonable compared to commercial units and it should be sonically superior to all the single output PSs out there.
I had a problem a while back with my Nott. seeming to drag some. I lifted off the motor pulley and discovered some hair wrapped around the motor shaft and wedged into the bushing. Removed it and everything was hunky-dory.
It seems to me that some of the posters here have forgotten some of their Trig. A complete sine wave cycle is 360 degrees. As the previous poster stated one set of field coils is driven by the primary AC current and the other with a AC current 90 degrees out of phase. This phase shift is usually accomplished with a capacitor (the current though a capacitor is 90 degrees out of phase with the voltage across it). Now, a sine wave generator with TWO amplifiers (thus two outputs), one 90 degrees out of phase, with the ability to "trim" the phase angle between the two has the ability to null out almost all motor vibrations. This is a distinct advantage over those sine wave generators with just one output. I own a Nottingham Wave Mechanic. I recently had it open to replace an output transistor that failed (it doesn't do too well with a single ended output stage). There is NOTHING special here. If the parts cost more than $125 I'd be surprised. Yet it retails for something north of $1200. They don't call us Audiofools for nothing. That's one reason I'm committed to DIY. Kevin's kit should provide a lot more "bang for the buck". The OEM power supplies are usually nothing more than an oscillator, a cheap amplifier and a transformer to boost the voltage output of the amp to 120V.
Bpoletti, turntables that use AC are of the synchronous variety. Their speed is determined by the frequency of the AC, not it's voltage. The way AC line voltage bounces around a motor that depended on it for speed regulation would do a lousy job. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_motor
All this talk about phase has to do with reducing motor vibration, not speed regulation per say. Vibration can add a form of frequency modulated distortion, a form of analog "jitter" if you will.