Soundermn, actually I have two problems. After kids mine has shrunk to only three inches and then there is my Alzheimer's disease or was that vascular dementia? |
I think wemfan tuned out a while ago. I was just trying to keep him from making a big mistake and buying a Linn. Daveyf wants to make sure everybody else has to spend money getting their Linn modified. rauliruegas, I like you better every day. High Five buddy!
Jaym759, I suppose I did miss-state that and you are right especially when it comes to the most amazing part of our systems. I seems that it is very difficult for the audiophile community to understand how much our brains are in control of the experience. Just our emotional state at the time can change our perception of sound quality. As you are well aware our ears are connected to our eyes so that they stay on target but I think our eyes can modify our audio experience. Why all those fancy light shows at concerts? Why does my system sound better when I am happy.
There was a period when I was very depressed and I stopped listening to music. I didn't turn the system on for 6 months. It sounded like crap. I read book after book after book trying to take my brain somewhere else.
Enough of that.
Yes, SOTA is on a roll with speed control, a magnetic bearing which should further reduce rumble and the heavier sub chassis. I have to have mine updated. All my Tables the Cosmos and the SME 30/12 are suspended even though I have a concrete floor. Sound vibrates everything and is transmitted through everything except a perfect vacuum
and IMHO suspended turntables sound better because of better isolation.
Unless you want to spend ridiculous money for something like a Lyra Atlas or a Clearaudio Goldfinger the Windfeld Ti is the one. It runs in that crowd and I feel comfortable saying that there is no moving coil cartridge that tracks better. It breezed through the HiFi News test record and the Clearaudio DaVinci could not make it through without a stutter at the end.
I did not mention other great cartridges like the Koetsu's, Air Tight's and the Ortofon Anna Diamond because they are all very low compliance cartridges that will not work well in your arm without adding a lot of weight. There are other cartridges like the Kiseki Purple heart and higher compliance Sound Smiths that might work well but I have no experience with them. Do let us know what you do and give us a review!
Mike
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jperry, the Linn LP 12 in a very important episode in turntable history. Because of all the ringing it added a shine to the music audiophiles fell in love with just like tubes. Plus it taught a whole generation of audiophiles how to walk very gently. Many of us still walk on our toes because of that table.
daveyf, you can insult me all you want but anyone taking the Linn apart would wonder how anybody could get more than a couple of hundred bucks for construction like that. My old Zenith portable with the Cobra Tonearm that even had eyes was built better. Most people do not want to buy a turntable they have to modify. They just want a turntable that works right from the start. If you like tinkering great. knock yourself out but most people are not like that. jaym759 will find that once he has his SOTA set up he will not have to touch it until he changes cartridges.
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Jaym759, Wernikes area can absolutely be found in the Rt temporal lobe but yes it is most usually in the Lt temporal lobe. I had a patient who was right handed and developed an acute global aphasia along with weakness in the Left leg?? Two stokes. No just one. His Wernikes was in the Rt temporal lobe which is where he stroked out. If you like neurology today I diagnosed a middle aged gentleman with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy.
I hope you are enjoying your SOTA and perhaps the most cleverly engineered tone arm ever made. Quite a guy Frank Kuzma. I think the Ortofon Windfeld Ti is perfect in that arm and very difficult to top IMHO.
Oh and not my weakness Daveyf, yours. I got over it. There must be problems with the Linn still because everybody wants to modify it. My current SOTA and SME need no modification although I will upgrade the SOTA to the new motor when I get a chance. |
Daveyf, you are correct. I have never seen or taken apart a Klimax modified Linn and it is possible that they have cleverly fixed all the problems that table had. Remember I owned two of them. Back in the late 70's everyone was crazy about the Linn. So I bought one. At that time the suspension was so poorly tuned the slightest jar sent the tonearm skyward. The only mod I made to that one was a laminated arm board replacing the Masonite one. So I sold it in frustration and made mistake #2 buying a Transcriptors table with a Vestigial arm. The one with the glass plinth with the record in the air on brass pillars. Very cool looking.
Stupid design. Live and learn. Then I had one of the original Oracle tables. Again poorly tuned suspension and QC problems. Then in frustration back to The Linn LP12. Nothing had changed but I figured it would be easier to deal with and I certainly did not have enough money for a Goldmond. So I did. I dampened the platter and had it statically balanced. I dampened the sub chassis by covering it with automotive sound dampening which also made it heavier lowering the resonance rate of the suspension. I stuffed rubber of various durometers into the springs until I got the right increase in Q and made it a new layered arm board with an ebony veneer on top. The one thing the Linn taught me was that having a dust cover is mandatory. I have not been without one since. It lasted until I got to Akron, Ohio for residency. The dealer who I worked with in Miami knew the owner of a shop in Akron call the Golden Gramophone, John Ashe who was also a car junkie. We became friends quickly. He had a red 512BB (Burlinetta Boxer). What a car. Anyway, he took on SOTA given the reviews it was getting and he actually made me take it home to try. One week later I ordered one for myself and have never looked back.
I put a Syrinx PU3 arm on it (great Arm) and the only mod I made was putting a glass mat on it. The platters on the original SOTAs did ring and the glass mat dampened it perfectly. I did not get another table for 20 years.
Certain issues are open to opinion others are simply facts of life. I will add IMHO when it is opinion. When I do not add it, it is either a fact of life or I am horribly mistaken which does happen on occasion. |
Dutchydog, saying "always" usually does not work well. Many records do sound better than their digital counterparts like Jethro Tulls thick as a brick. On the CD version Ian Anderson's voice is very harsh but on the record smooth as silk. I just down loaded a 96/24 remastered version of Thick as a Brick but have not listened to it yet. If a record is remastered correctly for digital playback it certainly can sound better than the vinyl. The Leon Russel (blue) album is a good example. The vinyl is somewhat muffled sounding even at volume. The digital version is clear as a bell and more dynamic. So it all depends.
Mike |
Not ego, Fun! The mythology behind audiophilia is fabulous and the explanation for what people think they hear are even better, without a shred of proof. Any scientist would be laughed out of the community. It is like a ride through a haunted house with gremlins jumping out ready to cut your throat.
Turntables have two lives. One is to spin records the other is as artwork.
I'm all for the artwork and mechanical dexterity but try not to confuse them. I think the Clearaudio Statement wins the prize for artwork and I would never buy one even if I had the money to throw away.
Daveyf, the Linn platter rings like a bell, the sub chassis rings like a bell, the tonearm board is a flimsy piece of Masonite, the suspension resonance is too high and it is poorly dampened, if you live in a high humidity area like Miami the plinth will eventually fall apart. You can correct all these problems but then you would have a different turntable.
Get a SOTA , SME or Basis. You won't have to screw around and you will be much happier in the end.
Mike |
No noromance you are fooling yourself. When I evaluate anything having to do with audio I am careful to place the evaluation within the context of my physiologic and psychological weaknesses. You obviously have no idea were your weakness are which means I have no interest in your opinion. You refuse to admit that the idler wheel drive has all but disappeared. High end manufacturers favor belt drive for a reason.
Uberwaltz, everyone can enjoy any stuff they like for any number of reasons. Wonderful. Everyone is entitled. I am not denigrating you I am simply stating a simple fact that idler wheel tables rumble more so than belt drive. Apparently that is not an issue for you and the 401 has other qualities that you like. Great. But turntables do not have drive. The music may have drive. Good turntables just spin at a constant speed and hopefully sound like nothing.
Nothing I said was oversimplified or generalized. If you really want to dig into specifics just download a book on neurology and look up the section on hearing. You do not listen with your your ears. Your ears are totally dumb microphones. They send signals down cranial nerves #8 (vestibulocochlear nerve) into the cerebellopontine angle where it then breaks into several pathways. Depending on what the sound is it will be interpreted by specific areas of the brain. Speech is interpreted in Wernicke's area in the left temporal lobe (if you are right handed). If Wernicke's area is damaged by a stroke the person will be able to talk fine but will not understand a thing. That is called a receptive aphasia. When doing brain mapping when the person is listening to speech Wernicke's area lights up. Interestingly when listening to music the whole brain lights up! Your brain is doing the listening and your intellect is interpreting what your brain is hearing. What you brain tells you is not only based on physiology but decades of training, learning and built in instincts. What your intellect hears can be modified by all of that. Try listening to Indian music. Most of us will wrinkle up our nose and say YUK. But Indian folks love it because their brains were trained to like it ours were not. God knows what John Coltrane was hearing. Our brains are very tricky devices far beyond the understanding of our intellects.
This is why you get so many varied opinions about what something sounded like. Then there is ego. Which is often on display here.
Mike
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noromance, then you are a seriously superior human. Not only is audio memory extremely short in all humans except noromance but our perspective of sound is subject to psychological modification. We hear what we want to hear except noromance of course who is superior to the rest of us. A good example of this and this has been done, if you put an amplifier in a bland chassis and put the same amp in a fancy one just about everyone will think the fancy one sounds better. Michael Fremer is a really easy read. The more expensive piece will always sound better. noromance do you think TechDas could use an idler wheel drive if they wanted to? What about Walker or any of the other megabuck tables out there. ALL belt drive. What you talk about, dynamic energy and oscillation is fictional mythology. Uberwaltz likes his 401 because in his brain it is a cool piece so it must sound good. It makes him happy which is great. It still rumbles like an express train. daveyf is hung up on LP12s. davey, I have owned two of them and tried just about everything to make them sound better. You just can not make a silk purse out of a sows ear. I would certainly take uberwaltz's 401 before I would go near a Linn. The Linn is so bad I would give up vinyl forever and just play my hard drive.
effischer, I'll have to look into that. The spring tension must be adjustible in some way. You have to keep the resonance frequency between 2 to 3 Hz with a very high Q. So you either have to keep the mass constant or change the spring stiffness. I dearly hope the new owners have not messed things up. SME gets away with it because their turntable is so darn heavy that any change in tonearm mass is insignificant. Maybe SOTA is now using a heavier platform. Anyway I know the SOTA will not handle a 4 point 11 because I called and asked maybe two years ago.
I think concentrating on the music is a brilliant idea:)
Mike
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Noromance, you have your system set up the way you want to hear it. It is what you are use too. On top of that audio memory is very short. On top of that we hear what we want to hear. So, I am afraid that kind of comparison has no validity. Hook your turntable up to an oscilloscope and measure the rumble. It will be much higher than any belt driven turntable
that has an undamaged bearing. I never mentioned anything about sound. I only talked about rumble. There are four additional hard contact points in an idler wheel turntable. The motor bearing, capstan to idler wheel, the idler wheel bearing then idler wheel to platter. Each one is a source of noise. Idler wheel turntables are dinosaurs. Radio and DJ use has been transferred to the much better direct drive turntables but for audiophile use the belt drive reins. It keeps the motor as far away from the cartridge as possible and has no hard contact points between the motor and platter so you are only dealing with the noise of one bearing.
Effischer, I did not know that Kirk had passed. RIP. I was talking about the effective mass of the tonearm in relation to the cartridge. The absolute mass of the tonearm is critical to a suspended turntable which is why the SOTA's compensate with lead shot added to the well under the tonearm board. You can compensate to a large degree but there are some arms like the 4 Point 11 that are simply too heavy to mount on a SOTA. You run out of lead shot to remove. I use my Koetsu Rosewood Signature Platinum on a 4 Point 14 and I get a resonance frequency of 8 Hz. You could add mass to the head shell of a lighter tone arm to get the desired resonance frequency but then you would lower the resonance frequency of the suspension. You would have to remove the arm board and remove lead shot. There is some lee way in the resonance frequency of the suspension so you can play around a bit without getting into trouble.
Anyway the point is to make the music sound better and avoid situations that would interfere with the enjoyment of same.
Enjoy the music! |
daveyf, the LP12 is way overdue for extinction and there is no way to upgrade it to make even remotely competitive it is so poorly engineered.
The SME, SOTA and Basis turntable are all excellently engineered suspended tables and so much better than the LP12 it boggles the mind why anyone would want one. It was not even a good table in it's day. It was just one of the only 1/2 decent turntables available then. It's like the Garrards. There are a mess of cheap ones around used so everyone is twisting a screw here and there then waxing about how much better the table sounds. When I was young I bought a used TD 124. It was a boat anchor and reliable. It also rumbled like an express train. I had no illusions that it was magically going to get better regardless of what I did to it. But it was all I could afford and it served it's purpose. The problem for these turntables now is that there are so many decent inexpensive tables out there now that outperform them. |
Wemfan, as you noticed people like to wax poetic about turntables, tonearms and cartridges. Just look at the finest, most expensive examples of each. All of the finest, most expensive turntables are belt driven, not direct drive and not idler wheel. Look at the SAT tonearm. Big stiff tapered tube and rigid bearings. Check out the cantilever of the Clearaudio Goldfinger or the Air Tight PC-1 Supreme. Tiny diamond glued right to the end of a boron cantilever. No excess material. Now look for those traits in more reasonably priced equipment.
For set up you will need a good protractor. I like the DB Systems. A pocket mirror, a digital tracking force gauge, a bubble level and tools usually supplied with the tonearm. If you get a SOTA you can tell them what arm you plan on using and they will drill the arm board for you.
Mike |
effischer, the Koetsu requires a considerably heavier arm than you would put on a SOTA. The Ortofon Windfeld Ti is very neutral, will match up with just about any system and is one of the best tracking cartridges you can buy. It handily out runs my Koetsu in that regard on the Hi Fi News test record. It also works well in a wider variety of arms. I would not consider a unipivot arm at all. If you look at Lyra's web site you will notice that they specifically recommend against it. The Triplanar and SME are excellent arm but IMHO the 4 point 9 is better and less expensive. |
Ok Wemfan, you can use anything you like as long as you have a sturdy platform. You should be able to lean against it without making the turntable skip. For 10 to 15 I would get a SOTA Sapphire, put a Kuzma 4 point 9 on it with an Ortofon Windfeld Ti cartridge. I think that should run around 12-13 and you don't have to worry how sturdy your platform is:)
You would have to spend really serious money to do better than that. You are right at the point of seriously diminishing returns.
Mike |
Wemfan, I need to know a little more about your situation. Is your equipment stand (cabinet) on a wood platform floor or on a concrete slab? This will determine if you can use any turntable (concrete slab) or just suspended turntables (wood floor) |
