BTW - I have the same Beatles Collection sitting on top next to my components outside the normal record area......
What's the Beatles box on top? |
Tonearm is most important, assuming the table spins at the right speed. You can always add isolation or put it on a wall shelf.
As the OP mentioned it is a Rega RB330, not 300, and this was a nice improvement a few years ago.
I’d get the Sota between the two, but if it were me, I’d go with a Rega P6, or if I could, stretch for the P8 and get an even better arm and table for $2600 if you could get a 15% discount, which are out there. That could be your last turntable. |
@mijostyn - I disagree with you. Walls do not jump with foot falls. I have a P8 on a wall shelf on top of a Townshend seismic isolation platform. So it is pretty damn isolated. The solid steel shelf is directly screwed into 4 studs and believe me - it is not going anywhere, especially since my table weighs only 10 pounds. That's why Rega sells shelves. Mine is a Project since it accommodates my tru-lift.
That may not be quite as good as an SME (or others costing >$5K with arm) but having an RB 880 arm is excellent. I think we agree on most points though. SOTA has had some ups and downs. Rega is not going anywhere (or is Technics, VPI, and a few others). I tend to not want to get involved with a boutique turntable vendor.
If I wanted to spend some mad $$ on a $5K+ table, I would look at all your choices that are stable companies.
I'm not a DD fan, but I think it is a good concept if executed properly. Hard to separate the motor though. The devil is in the details. I heard about a new VPI DD table that is supposedly excellent, but it is up there in price and I do not like unipivot arms and I think their Fatboys that are 3D printed are crap. I guess you could put a 3rd party arm on it, but I like buying an arm and table that are designed for each other if possible. I think turntable nirvana is a top SME.
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What do you think of the new entry level SME table for like $9K? |
thanks @mijostyn - I beleive you - no stethoscope required. I actually spoke with Max Townshend himself (nice guy, not a real businessman though, more like a mad scientist, which is a shame, because he has some fantastic products including a turntable no longer made called the Rock, which is supposedly one of the best tables ever - he could have been a higher end Rega) when I was buying the Townshend platform and he told me ALL about the microtremors in the earth that his systems counteract. He has studied earthquakes, etc. in a real way. They are present on the floor or wall of course all the time.
Like I said though, the wall has no footfalls, which are the worst, which I was having with Max's platform because I have a suspended floor over a crawl space and those low frequencies hit at the wrong point and were additive with his platform. It sounded so much better that I was willing to deal with the foot falls, but once I decided to put in the wall shelf (and my wife didn't throw a fit) I have the vibration/isolation as optimized as possible. It sounds incredible, so I don't see myself changing it as it is the strongest part of my system. I know internal isolation within a table is the most desirable, but I would probably have to at least double my TT investment. Law of diminishing returns....
Maybe speakers down the road. My KEF R500s are only a year old, and they replaced a 25 year old pair of Alons, so based on my previous behavior/experience my system may be set for a long time, other than cartridge maintenance (VDH MC One Special) unless the distributor makes me an offer I can't refuse when that stylus wears out and I get something else. Just got the cartridge completely replaced in August, so I'm just kicking back for a few years most likely.
What's your system and where are you from? |
Forget it - I just saw your system you posted. Pretty nice, I must say. Way beyond mine, but I am not a fan of electrostatics as they are very directional from what I hear, and the dustcover on your table is attached through those hinges which bother me because it is better to remove it completely when playing and when I used to have to worry about that on my old Rega P5, I forgot sometimes if I put the dustcover back in the hinges when stopped paying for the time being. I guess I should just have never put it back in the hinges but it is hard for me to change a mindless routine after 10 years with a table, and with the P8 it is impossible to screw that up.
You really are into the digital stuff big time. Do you prefer it to vinyl or does it depend if you can find the vinyl of what you want to play?
My potential interest in digital would be if there were a lot of music I couldn't find on vinyl, which is not the case. I hate to say it, but I like what I like and the newest group that I have any vinyl of is REM (I know that dates me). Of course I have new records from people still alive, but they've all been around a while. |
@mijostyn - you can make your changes, but they may not be audible to some people. We all have different hearing and listening capabilities and skills, not to mention preferences and biases.
How do you measure audible changes that dont change frequency response? |
Although I am a Rega guy and switched from DD 20 years ago (linear tracking Phase Linear 8000 and never looked back after a $500 Music Hall MMF5 blew it away), I agree with @chakster that hearing a turntable is at the bottom of the analogue chain. IMHO it’s arm first, then cartridge/phono stage, then table. Especially if it is well isolated from vibrations.
i as told years later that my PL8K may not have been set up properly…. I still think there was too much going on with fully automatic arm movement and the linear tracking aspect creating all sorts of noise. Did the direct drive system contribute to that? Not sure. Phase Linear was a marketing name as the “Sony Esprit” line for Pioneer and I know they made some decent stuff back in the day. Maybe @chakster has a few of their examples…. |
@lewm - I am just saying that the turntable is less important than the arm or the cartridge/phono stage. Of course the noise created by the turntable differentiates it from others - it’s not just about getting the correct speed. And, of course better specs don’t necessarily mean better sound. Not everything audible is measurable and not everything measurable is audible. It would be easier for audiophiles to make equipment decisions if these statements weren’t true, but it’s not that simple. You need to listen.
@chakster -please confirm your agreement that turntables matter, even if they rotate at the correct speed, they can add varying amounts of noise. |
I guess if you can hear it, there is some way to measure it. That would mean that if you can’t measure it you can’t hear it. Thats where the major arguments were brewing with the SR camp and the measuring camp a few weeks ago that got pretty intense after some videos were posted. Didnt mean to fan those flames…..
i guess I’m in the measuring camp now. Sorry MC & Ted. |
Isn’t a fuse just functioning as an on/off “switch” if you will?
I doubt I could hear a difference, but according to the authorized repair guy for my Plinius amp, if your system is resolving enough, you can hear a small effect, that may or may not be worth the cost. He said the people who have “upgraded” them that he spoke with were happy with the results. |
@lewm - 2 pieces of stereo equipment may have the same (commonly quoted) specs but sound different when measured by @mijostyn and his sophisticated diagnostic tools and methods. Also, when specs ate measured, it may be under different confitions or assumptions.
I am not a EE so I don’t know much about fuses. Perhaps there are other characteristics or specs beyond those of UL? Just a thought. |
So @mijostyn - you are of the opinion that a moving wire (interconnect or speaker cable) while the music is playing doesn't change the sound? According two AJ van den Hul it does as per his excellent white paper under FAQ on his web site. I am not going to say that I can hear the difference if my speaker cable is on the floor or off of it because of a box it passes over or a small ledge to keep it off the ground, but if you believe AJ (as I do) then a cable which lies on the floor is subject to the vibration from the speakers and thereby moving. Whether you can hear that bit of distortion or not is debatable (just like the fuse debate), otherwise why would people buy and keep (they offer money back guarantees) cable elevators? It is the easiest blind test to create.
I do agree that most of the improvements deemed remarkable should be termed audible or barely audible. If some of the believers were accurate, then all of these tweaks removed would remarkably make their systems sound worse, which I bet they would never say, otherwise removing all of them would make their system sound terrible. |
