New TT ideas please

Here's what I'm looking for: Clarity, detail, accurate timbre, clear and realistic imaging, quickness, depth, neutral, pitch black quietness, beauty and musicality. I don't want any darkness or anything that is laid back. I want something that can work with detailed cartridges (dynavector etc.) and with gorgeous cartridges (koetsu etc.).

Good list.

What you're seeking is a TT that will "always" spin at at exactly the chosen speed while simultaneously sinking as much resonance energy as possible away from the vinyl/stylus interface. Therefore, there are some turntable "features" you should avoid:

- suspended tables (unless very expensive); they sap speed and bass energy, soften dynamics and raise the noise floor by feeding false (non-musical) energy back into the cartridge

- belt drives that use stretchy (rubber) or slippery (thread) belts; TT makers normally chose such belts to "protect" the platter from motor noise, which tells you they prefer bandaids to applying good engineering to minimizing the problem at the source; elastic and slippery belts are invariably vulnerable to stylus drag, which slews transient leading edges and robs the music of lifelike speed, snap and energy; even the rotational inertia of my 35 lb. platter is not enough to make belts like those sound acceptable

- low mass plinths that can't sink lots of resonance energy; resonances raise the noise floor and this masks the low level details which deliver realistic timbre, sharp images and realistic soundspaces

"Beauty and musicality" are in the ear of the beholder of course. Neither I nor anyone else knows what those terms mean to you. Your technical requirements are easier to address, as above.

Spend some time researching and thinking about these approaches, which avoid the above pitfalls better than most:
- Galibier
- Teres
- Redpoint
- modded Lenco or similar

Happy hunting!
Doug

Hi Pauly,

How does my suspension do all these things?

By obeying Newton's Third Law of Motion.

I had an unsuspended table not to long ago and it was less dynamic, had less bass impact and had a much higher noise floor than my Oracle. (It also cost more than my Oracle).

I suspect the sonic shortcomings were directly related to the fact that each and every micro vibration was dumped straight into the cart, something not happening with my Oracle.

I suspect you're right. There was clearly something amiss with a more expensive table that couldn't match a less expensive one. I did mention that a well designed, high mass plinth is needed to damp resonances on a non-suspended table. Maybe your previous table lacked that?

Motors & belts:

You're right about motors of course, they're vitally important. Clearly a "puny" motor, whether DC or AC, will have more trouble resisting stylus drag than a more robust one. And a noisy or cogging one will be unsuitable for direct torque coupling to the platter. (Can you imagine a direct drive with a noisy or unstable motor? Ewww.) The best of all motors would be powerful, quiet and would provide constantly linear acceleration, not a simple task.

We may have to agree to disagree on motor/platter coupling. I have experimented with at least 10 different belt types, on two tables and with three different motors. This was with platters weighing 25 and 35 lbs. respectively, far heavier than an Oracle's.

Despite these hefty platters the differences between one belt and another are invariably audible. Elastic belts ALWAYS stretch on leading edges of transients (that's what "elastic" means of course), and a more powerful motor simply exaggerates this. After reaching full extension, the elastic then seeks to return to its resting state on the trailing edge of the transient. This is also audible. Slippery belts (silk thread, silk tape, etc.) also degrade the sound. When a transient increases drag on the belt/pulley interface, a slippery belt slips. The effect is pretty similar to the leading edge stretch of an elastic belt, though there may not be any rebound on the trailing edge.

High rotational inertia cannot overcome stylus drag. That's a physical impossibility. All it can do is lower the frequency and amplitude of induced variations in rotational velocity. That may dampen stylus drag effects but it will not audibly eliminate them. A strong motor with a linear torque coupling to the platter is the only way, at least IME.

Best,
Doug

Pauly,

Sorry for not explaining the Newton reference in my usual mind-numbing detail. Still, let's keep Michael Moore out of this. I don't know what kind of tables he likes and you probably don't either.

The problem I've noticed with suspended tables (again, not including the more expensive ones, which I haven't heard) had nothing to do with floor- or air-borne vibrations. It resulted from the suspension allowing plinth movements in reaction to cantilever excursions and arm movements. This sapped energy from the cartridge, slewed and slowed transients, muddied bass, etc. Sorry, but that's what I've heard. More than once.

Just yesterday I received this email from a friend who just received one of Thom's tables (switching from an Oracle, actually):

Toms bang more. Kick drums hold their decay but the low end and transient response is lightning fast especially for such a massive table.

I chuckled at that last, since it is the precisely his new table's mass and stability which give his arm a stable platform, which allows the cartridge to perform better.

Hatari,

I have a friend with a Clearaudio Master Ref (I think, the one with three motors and three rubber belts). He replaced all three with one Teres motor and one non-stretchy belt, and reported better pace and cleaner, faster transients.

Acrylic? Any stucture (platter, plinth, whatever) made from a single, homogenous material is going to resonate more than an identical structure made of a mix of different materials. Materials boundaries break up and reflect energies, so more materials can result in more energy dissipation. Different materials also absorb and release energies at different frequencies. With proper implementation all the above is to the good, since it will lower the noise floor of the table. Acrylic is used because it's easy to machine and relatively cheap - and many people like its looks. Teres used to offer all-acrylic plinths and platters. They stopped because they couldn't get the performance they were seeking.

The only weakness I can think of in a Redpoint (which I haven't heard) is that floating arm pod. Puts you at risk of unintended and possibly major cartridge realignments, possibly without noticing. ;-) If you can deal with that, I'd say give one a listen. Having a dealer near is a huge benefit, better than all the internet chats in the world!

Best,
Doug

Terry,

Before you posted I stated clearly - twice - that I have not heard and was not commenting on the more costly suspended tables. For you to leap to the conclusion that I, "dismiss suspended turntables out of hand" was a considerable overstatement that ignored what I actually wrote.

So, why bring an $80,000 JEM Blue Pearl (12x Hatari's budget) into the discussion as a counter-example to something I very carefully did not say? I'm sure a $300K Ferrari would outperform my $25K Mazda and whatever car Hatari drives too. We knew that.

Suspensions are difficult to do well. Some very costly implementations may succeed, or not. I don't know - for the third time.

The ones I've heard within Hatari's budget did not meet his stated priorities (which are very similar to mine) as well as the four brands I mentioned. I've stated my relevant experiences and my understanding of them. Please share your own of course, but save the Michael Moore wisecracks.

Terry,

No offense taken. My request to leave Michael Moore out of this should not have been included in a response to you. Sorry if that confused things.

I haven't heard a Scheu, just its larger and more capable derivatives (Teres/Galibier/Redpoint). Those tables began life as a DIY Scheu knock-off project, but they've spent years refining and upgrading every component. There's little about any of them that's comparable to a Scheu any longer. They're now in another league in virtually every respect, including price of course.

Glad to hear you've tried an external motor and non-elastic belt and agree on the differences, more or less. ;-) My partner and I happen to be acutely sensitive to transient skewing, so for us it's one of those big deals. YMMV of course.

100% agree with your question about how Hitari plans to site his table. Could make a huge difference. I once tried some very thin rubber discs beneath the feet of my 80 lb. table, just to protect the wood rack surface. They softened transients in a way we found intolerable. Everything matters...

Thom,

You mentioned that your listening group found that "too much" torque in the motor-platter coupling made the sound harsh. Chris's group has reported similar findings.

In our torque experiments (8 or 10 different drive belts, of which the familiar holographic mylar provided the maximum) we heard the same thing. The torque-ier the belt, the more the sound had a tendency to go "harsh".

However, our crazed habit of adjusting and recording SRA/VTA settings for each LP quickly led us to an important discovery. The problem is not "too much" torque. The problem is that different amounts of torque require different arm height settings. Get SRA/VTA right and there's no such thing as too much torque, at least up to the limits of our experiments to date. We'll test this further when Chris's rim drive motor arrives.

We have produced this result consistently and repeatably across many hundreds of LP's, with multiple drive belts. If you checked the notes on our oldest, most-played records, you'd observe a series of arm height settings. They're coded for the different belts we've advanced through. IN EVERY CASE, a change from one belt to any other belt required an identical change in arm height. If I pull out a record today that hasn't been played in a year or two, and so was last played with a less torquey belt, I can reliably calculate and dial in a new arm height based the old one, because there's a constant differential between each belt and the next.

The torque-ier the belt, the lower the arm must go, and by the same amount. We all know that lowering the arm reduces "harshness". This has worked consistently, with every belt, on every record.

We haven't yet heard too much torque and I'm not sure such a thing is possible. The exception would be if higher torque came with higher cogging, as Chris mentioned, but that wouldn't create sonic harshness. It would create waveform slewing and rebound, quite another thing to our ears.

Any thoughts?
Doug

Piedpiper,

Great question, which I've asked myself many times. Wish I had a good answer. I was hoping someone would come up with one!

Geoff Husband's theory is one possiblility. He believes tiny VTA/SRA changes are audible due to specific resonance frequency points in the arm/cartridge system. As torque changes it's likely those behaviors would change, requiring adjustment to re-minimize certain resonances. This doesn't really explain everything we hear, but neither does any other theory.

Regarding tonal balance, our reference cartridge does not change tonal balance with changes in arm height. Any ZYX UNIverse owner will tell you that its bass/treble balance do not change with VTA/SRA. Some lower resolution cartridges (like my Shelter 901 for example) do that. I could have used arm height as a tone control with that cartridge if I'd wanted to, though I never did. With a UNIverse it's not even possible .

With a good cartridge what changes with VTA/SRA, in Frank Schroeder's words, is the temporal integraton of fundamentals vs. harmonics. Paul calls it "temporal smearing" (or preferably the lack thereof).

When arm height is just right, each tonal component of a complex note occurs at just the right time relative to the other components. Temporal smearing is reduced and the note sounds integrated. If arm height is off, the fundamental occurs too early or too late relative to the harmonics, making the note sound either fuzzy (HF's too early) or dull (too late). In addition, peak amplitudes are reduced and waveforms are unnaturally extended in time, making each note sound slower and more rounded. This effect is most audible with LF notes.

Whatever we're doing with arm height, it has nothing to do with tone controls. Our ideal setting for an LP reveals more of the music, not less.

FWIW, the magnitude of height changes from one belt to another is not large. From the weakest belt we kept records for (1 mil mylar) to the strongest (2.2 mil mylar), the differential is 32/100ths of a turn on the TriPlanar's dial. That's an arm height change of just .0224". What's notable is the absolute repeatability in both direction and distance. I can't explain it, but I can hear it and repeat it.