Stylus-Drag..Fact or Fiction?

The belt v direct drive battle has swung to and fro over many decades but is the tide finally about to turn for good in the favour of the latter?

Should anyone in 2019 really leave the vital matter of turntable speed control precision depending upon a rubber belt? 

A rubber belt who’s main purpose seems to be an attempt to dampen and isolate motor vibrations at the cost of significantly measurable imprecision.

@jtimothya , thanks for those links. Definitely essential reading for anyone serious about vinyl.

Love the clarity of Moncrieff piece in particular. As for the out of this world Monaco 2 speed stats, it's good to know that Technics don't have it all to themselves when it comes to speed accuracy.

I can still remember the hullabaloo when Linn introduced their Lingo outboard power supply (1990). As an upgrade to their Valhalla built in board (1982), it was seen back then as the biggest upgrade in the history of the LP12. The Lingo itself was superceded by the Radikal (2009). Speed matters, and don't Linn know it.

Linn of course have persisted with their rubber belts and a cult soin developed regarding which way around the belt should be fitted. Some critics sniggered that the reason why they clung so steadfastly to rubber belts was largely down to the cheap crappy AC motors that they used for decades...

Anyway, that J. Peter Moncrieff's IAR article on The Rockport Sirius III is a classic of its kind and fully deserves to be better known. It's not the last word on turntables, and despite the fact that it's bound to incense a few it's worth 15 minutes or so reading for anyone interested in vinyl.

http://www.iar-80.com/page12.html

Perhaps Technics (orig Sony) claim of eliminating direct drive 'cogging' have finally turned the tide for good this time.

@atmasphere, nothing new under the sun, eh? Thanks.


@rodman99999, good for you!

I think the main point to bear in mind is that, as stated in the Moncrieff article, is that it’s not just pitch errors that are affected by speed irregularities -

"In the past, most people have assumed that any speed errors in a turntable would be audible only as pitch errors, making the music sound off pitch or at worst slightly wobbly in pitch. But turntable speed errors also have other sonic consequences, which are far more pernicious. By playing the right amplitude at the wrong time, turntable speed errors create a distorted music waveform, even if the rest of your system were to be perfect. Indeed, as cartridges get better and better, becoming far cleaner and more accurate in tracking the amplitude half of the music waveform from the groove, and as the rest of our system chain continues to become at once cleaner and more revealing of everything (including not only the music but also distortions from our program sources), and become the last remaining hurdle of the state of the art."

On the other hand I’m sure that beyond a certain point none of us can readily hear speed imperfections, especially not those quoted for the Monaco 2. I mean I know turntable speed matters, it matters a lot, but this is overkill, isn’t it?

"The peak deviation from a perfect 33 1/3rpm rotational speed for the 2.0 is typically better than 0.0001% (1ppm) -- that’s actual platter motion, not a quartz-locked specification."

0.0001% ? That’s just another way of describing perfection as far as humans go.

On the other hand companies like Linn and Rega to this day remain strangely quiet regarding data on the absolute speed accuracy of their (belt-driven) products.

Doesn’t stop thousands from enjoying them though does it?

@lewm too modest. That should be clear to anyone (wherever their vested interests may lie).

@mikelavigne , "basically i’m a tube guy who owns solid state."

That's also true of most of us here, isn't it?

I just wish someone would put out a solid state amp in tube disguise. They say looks aren't everything, but they're certainly something.

@mikelavigne, the classic red and yellow 'Iron Man' look of the darTZeel 108 is surely a matter of taste. I think that the looks are impressive and must play some psychological role in the appreciation of it's sound.

Others may find it rather out of place gaudy and distracting for an amp which still fetches near $10k used.

@mijostyn, no but it would be interesting to see what would happen if a solid state was disguised as a tube and vice versa. Would the usual perceived differences still hold true? Would they?

Anyway I think it's fair to say that speed is critical when it comes to high level turntable playback. Just look at how many purely speed based revisions the Linn LP12 has had during its tenure since 1972. Each one from the Valhalla board to the Lingo to the Radikal promising a substantial sonic improvement. Each one constrained by the pliant rubber belt, each one still rather vague about numbers and specs to back up the promises.

The soft blurring introduced by borderline undetectable speed anomalies (by ear alone) doesn't bother me too much as it's appears to enhance the 'analogue' feel of the playback. Ultimately though it's always up to the listener to determine just how much accuracy they need.