I took the air out of my own analogy. The last sentence: "The cartridge and the tonearm are doing two entirely different things" should have read, "The cartridge and the TURNTABLE are doing two entirely different things", one in the signal voltage domain and the other in the time domain.
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Here is why it is a bad question to ask which is more important, turntable or cartridge. Think of a small jazz combo comprising 4 or 5 instruments and players. In such a group, the drum, bass, and/or piano can be thought of as the rhythm section. Most often, the rhythm is carried by the drummer or bassist. The turntable is analogous to a rhythm section. It alone determines the musical pace or tempo. The turntable's job first and foremost is to move the LP past the stylus at a constant speed regardless of forces that would tend to momentarily slow the platter. If the drummer is not keeping good time, the music will sound "off", too fast, too slow, dull, regardless of what the lead player in the group is doing. An experienced listener can hear it. Same goes for a turntable that is incapable of maintaining a constant speed. Think of that as time, t, on the X-axis. The linear progression of the music depends upon the turntable. The cartridge works in concert with the tonearm to pick up and accurately represent the signal encoded in the LP grooves. The work of the cartridge/tonearm is analogous to that of the soloist who heads up the jazz combo. His musicianship can be impeccable and original in content, but if the rhythm section is "off", you feel it. The cartridge/tonearm are responsible for amplitude, which is manifest as voltage at given frequencies, the y-axis. I’ve already mentioned that all my experience tells me the cartridge and tonearm should be thought of as a unit, a closed system. No matter how accurate the cartridge and tonearm are at translating changes in signal V, the music will not sound "right" to an experienced listener unless the turntable does its job of maintaining perfect timing, t, by driving the LP past the stylus tip at a constant speed. Yes, turntables sound different from one another, even two turntables that both keep good time will sound different. This is due to noise or the suppression of noise, either from the motor or the bearing or elements of the drive system, that separate one turntable from another, and to the turntable's capacity to control and dissipate various resonances. This is why I say that turntables do have a "character" that stays constant regardless of what tonearm and cartridge are mounted on it. The cartridge and the tonearm are doing two entirely different things.
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You guys are right; I apologize for my part in digressing from the real topic of the thread. To the OP, I would say that my experience over the last 10-12 years, with running up to 5 turntables using 5 different tonearms with dozens of different cartridges is that you should consider the cartridge and tonearm as a unit, a closed system. The SQ from any given cartridge, no matter how expensive or how cheap, and no matter how it transduces physical motion to an electrical signal (MM, MI, or MC), is highly dependent upon the tonearm/headshell into which it is mounted. Mating cartridges to tonearms for optimum results has in my experience been a hit or miss affair (after one has done the homework to make at least a good mating), in terms of max results, but you can get "good" results by thoughtful matching done on an empirical basis. After that, turntables each have their own character which seems to remain fairly constant regardless of the tonearm/cartridge mounted on a given one. Also, to a large degree, where a tonearm has exchangeable headshells, you can manipulate the result by experimenting with various headshells. So, I never think of the relative importance of a cartridge and a turntable per se.
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Mijo, While you were going to medical school in or around Miami, I was going to medical school in NYC. Lyric Hi-Fi and Mike Kaye were in their heyday at that time, and I hung around that store and a few others, like Harmony House on 72nd St all too often. (Being a medical student in an MD/PhD program per se was taking up all my other time, so I did not work in a store.) Mike was a very nice guy, would talk about audio even to a poor medical student. I bought my first pair of audiophile speakers from him, IMF Studios. I wanted the Monitors but could not afford them or fit them in our tiny apartment. Later on, Mike took a back seat and the store became snotty, you needed an appointment to get in to one of their listening rooms.Still, in your interesting narrative of your early years, you did not actually name any of the actual DD turntables you were hearing back in the 70s. I might note that those relatively early DD turntables in general did not reference the speed to a quartz oscillator; that came along in the early 80s. I would not mess with any DD lacking a quartz referenced servo, and it's no wonder you were not impressed with those early efforts at DD. The difference between the original Technics SP10 and the SP10 Mk2 is the incorporation of a quartz reference for better speed control in the latter case. However, the SP10 Mk2 is one of a few DDs I have owned and heard that really do have a coloration, in my opinion. I owned two Mk2s; they added a faint "gray"-ish coloration that was only evident when you compared it to something else that lacked that same coloration. Many others who do not like DD ascribe this coloration to "hunting" due to the servo mechanism constantly correcting speed. My investigations tell me it is more likely due to EMI, as you mention. A little shielding added can fix that. The SP10 MK3 or the new SP10R are rock solid neutral and constant in speed in a way that no other turntable does it. The huge platter of the Mk3 provides inches of shielding from its motor. Another fix in relation to speed hunting is to stabilize the stators on the motor, as done by Richard Krebs. The torque of the motor while rotating the platter applies an equal and opposite force to the structural elements that restrain stator motion. If the structure is weak, the stator will move counter to the rotation of the platter by a tiny amount (Newton's Third Law), but this is enough to signal the servo that there is a speed error, so the servo tries to compensate by accelerating the platter, and there you go. These are issues with modern DD (and also with belt-drive motors where the consequences of counter-force are different), but for me the issues with belt-drive are audibly worse, so I've made my choice. You consistently mention the Grand Prix Monaco. There are many things I like about that turntable but it is off my list due to its light weight and carbon fiber construction, perhaps unfairly on my part. Even I would tell you, you are better off with a Dohmann Helix belt drive. I favor mass over a suspension, unless you are talking about Minus K or Herzan (which I think makes Minus K under another brand). Mass is needed to counter the force of the motor, again the motor wants to turn the plinth or the platter, and it doesn't care which. If you want a heavy platter (and I do), you need a very massive plinth, which also, if properly designed to incorporate constrained layer damping, soak up resonance. My SP10 Mk3 sits in a 90-lb plinth I made or had made out of slate and cherry wood. The Kenwood L07D was conceived with a 60-lb plinth made of a hard particulate of some kind plus a hard wood, for CLD.
As to the Rega, I disagree with Chakster's dismissing them out of hand. I think the higher end Rega turntables are very interesting experiments in extreme rigidity with low mass, and I'd like to hear one some time. Maybe they are bang for buck contenders in belt drive world.
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Plus Mijostyn has never revealed exactly which DD turntables he listened to back in the "1970s or 1980s", with what tonearms and cartridges and on what speakers. (Not that it would matter all that much, unless he listened to some decidedly inferior brand or model, because otherwise he is entitled to his opinion.) Plus, dear Mijo, you are guilty of a common audiophile sin: You have an observation on one hand ("I did not like that turntable sound), and a not necessarily related fact on the other (the turntable has a motor situated directly under the platter), and you are positing a cause and effect for which we (neither you nor I) have no other evidence. Even the 1970s (50 years ago) were not "dark ages". Electricity was well understood in the 1970s. Engineers knew about EMI and RFI and their possible negative effects on the operation of a phono cartridge placed nearby. Shielding was also an understood art. All of the high quality vintage DD turntables I have encountered evidence an effort to prevent the motor from interfering with the low level signal from a cartridge. I've measured EMI near the surface of the platter for two of my own DD turntables (SP10 Mk3 and Kenwood L07D), while the turntable was in operation, of course, and the signal is not above background. This is proof of nothing, but it is evidence of something.
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There never was anything special about M-S DD turntables in the first place. By and large, they are cheaply constructed. They made their bones by building enormous metal belt drives. Hence the fact they are now making Techdas, some of which have the same design flaws as did the original and still highly sought after and still very expensive M-S belt drives. One model even looks the same as one of their earlier belt drive efforts.
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Mijostyn, I have long ago moved on from the Nottingham, after having also moved on from the Sapphire. Each of my five turntables in current use is either direct drive or (one) idler drive, a very highly modified Lenco, which really only uses the platter, the motor, and the idler wheel from a Lenco L 78. With all due respect to Sota turntables, for you to talk about a Dohmann turntable with a built-in minus K platform or to talk about any spring suspension in the same breath with a minus K platform is a bit off the deep end, don’t you think.? The minus K is light years more advanced than any common spring suspension found on a turntable. And the Dohmann is indeed a world-class turntable if you have $40,000. I don’t categorically choose direct drive over belt drive, I only claim that for the same amount of cash investment, you get much more bang for the buck out of a direct drive turntable. And even if you have and are willing to spend the bucks, the dohmann and only a very few others actually give you value for money. Most of the rest of them are just bling exhibits. Your ad hoc arguments against direct drive just don’t hold water. |
Mijo, I don’t disagree with your general principles, except as regards the prime importance of speed constancy, which I emphasize more than you, apparently. But then you come down to recommending the Star Sapphire, a spring suspended belt drive. I owned one for 10 years as my only turntable. At the time, I considered it an entry into the high end of Audio. I ran a triplanar tonearm on it, for most of that time. I only later realized that vinyl reproduction does not have to include unstable piano and violin notes and muddy bass, which is all I ever got from the Sapphire. I went from the Sapphire to a Nottingham analog hyperspace turntable, also belt drive. It was far superior in all ways, especially after I added a Walker motor control, using the very same triplanar tonearm. I just think the sapphire is not a good choice for a paradigm. I do not mean by this to demean all of the Sota turntables. As I understand it, they have made some major improvements since the sapphire was their flag ship product.
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