noromance, you can say it was me. If you read jtimothya's link you will see idler wheel drives are dismissed out of hand. Then there is a long winded dissertation on the pitfalls of belt drive. What he says is technically true and I am sure he thinks he can hear these anomalies. His and noromance's hearing is obviously better than mine. But he conveniently leaves out the opposite. The platter also dampens the motor. In an idler wheel drive the connection is more direct. The mass of the platter dampens the power surges of the motor. Partially and even totally diminishing the cogwheel effect. In a belt drive things get more complicated. Kuzma solves the issue by using a heavy platter and a very stiff belt which again dampens the motor. But, is motor cogging really an issue. I suppose it depends on the motor. Another issue this author seems to ignore. Some motors hardly cog at all. This author's view of suspended turntables is interesting. Yes, if the suspension were continuously bouncing it might induce speed changes. I suppose I jump up and down in front of the turntable while I am listening to music just to watch it bounce. It is at absolute rest 99.9% of the time. I will gladly accept minor speed variation versus my tonearm hopping across the record when someone walks into the room. Anyway, the problem with idler wheel drive turntables is noise more so than speed variation.
I think the Grand Prix turntable is very cool and I would love to hear one in action.
The fact that friction slows the turntable down a little should not surprise anyone. Some tables now will maintain a constant speed/pitch regardless of load within reason. A good idea given with modern motors and electronics it should be easy to do. The Monaco certainly does this at high resolution. But is the motor well shielded. Having your cartridge floating above an oscillating magnetic device is counter intuitive. |
Mike, you need to get rid of both the Wave Kinetics and Saskia. Get yourself one of those Monaco 2.0 tables and put a Gabon Ebony Durand arm on it. The Gabon Ebony has seriously better timbre than the rosewood and has much lower stylus drag. And here I am stuck with this crappy Clearaudio Statement. But don't worry. I just ordered a Basis Work of Art. I can put the Statement in my Summer home in the Catskills. |
Phoenix, Thank you for that explanation. Do DC motors cog at all?
Mike |
Mike, Yes you have to ask for it and it will probably cost you an additional fee. Gabon ebony has a specific gravity close to 1. 1 is the specific gravity of water. So Gabon ebony is very stiff and heavier than most wood. Once it is dry it is also very stable. Great arm for Koetsu's and Air Tights. Problem with it is that it is rare and very difficult to dry. Usually you wind up wasting 30 to 40% of the wood in the process. Good Gabon Ebony is jet black. Black piano keys use to be made out of it. I use it for details in cabinets like drawer pulls, handles, inlay and such. It turns very nicely. |
Halcro, Very few of us have perfect pitch and even those that do probably still do not have the resolution to hear the degree of slow down caused by stylus drag. Unless you have a table like the Monaco that can pick up speed changes in 1/72nd of a rotation there is little you can do other than set your turntable speed while playing a record. The drag (speed) is going to change across the record and with various frequencies and modulation thus the speed is going to vary fractionally. I would love to see how a table like Kuzma's Stabi XL DC performs with the timeline. I would hazard a guess that it does very well. I know for a fact my SOTA slows down a little just by using a strobe disc. Their new drive might counter that but it has lower resolution, 1 rotation. Will that be good enough? It should certainly do better. At any rate I can not hear changes in pitch that slight so does it really matter? Again to me the most important aspect of vinyl playback is noise. Not only can you hear it but it can also drive your subwoofers crazy particularly if you use room control. I have had several records that I had to return because the lath used to cut the master was in bad shape and the rumble was obnoxious, all Rykodisc I might add.
Today is Yom Kippur and I would like to apologize to anyone I have pissed off last year:) |
Thank you Phoenix. What do you think is the optimum motor to use for a turntable? |
Richardkrebs, I do not think there is much difference between analog and digital in that regard. There is just more stuff to deal with in the analog world. Staying purely in the analog world I think you rob yourself of some fine musical experiences. As an example, Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick.
I have three versions, the original Album, the CD version and a remastered 96/24 download. In the CD version Ian's voice is cutting and uncomfortable at 95 db forcing me to use a notch filter centered at 3000 Hz. The album not so at all. Ian's voice is perfectly smooth. I just got the digital download and listened to it for the first time running the album in sinc at the same time volume matching with a meter. Ian's voice has a bit more bite than the album but not uncomfortable at all, but the download has superior bass and a better dynamic range so it is more punch. At the end of the first side I hear a squeak in the bass drum pedal for the very first time and I can not hear it in the other versions. Imaging is better in the 3rd dimension. Ian's flute and Martin's guitar float in space where on the Album an CD version they are painted on a wall.
Now much of this is probably due to the mastering but some is not particularly the dynamic range. Much less dynamic compression than on the album and CD.
I'll go where ever the music is best. Sometimes vinyl wins the comparison sometimes not. This is also true for old analog recordings like Thick as a Brick. It is not just the modality. Other issues come into play. The only common denominator I have noticed is that digital recordings sound better in high res digital so I avoid newer recordings in vinyl. With older recordings recorded before 1980 vinyl is frequently better than the CD version.
Sorry for getting off topic. But, In the end it is all about the enjoyment of music. Cool looking equipment is no good if it does not sound right.
Some systems will tilt the analysis for instance in a system that is a bit dull the CD version of Thick as a Brick might sound better. And so you get variations in opinion not due to different hearing. Different systems.
When I do these things with friends present more often than not we come to exactly the same conclusions. Don't give up on digital. There is a world of great music there. The only problem is that there is no equipment there that is as fascinating as vinyl playback.
Mike |
Phoenixengr, that would involve using a sophisticated solid state 3 phase converter plus the electronics to control speed. I can just see people getting a rotary converter with their Turntable:)
Rodman, use Millers racing oil. It has nano particles in it that reduce friction another 25%. |
Peterayer, no big surprise. The 30/12 is an amazing turntable. It's degree of isolation is better than any turntable I am aware of. The V12 is IMHO SME's best tonearm. Have you checked your resonance frequency on a test record? The SME is the lightest 12" tonearm I am aware of. It's effective mass is only 12 gms. The Air Tight is almost as stiff as a Koetsu.
My guess is that adding some weight to the head shell might improve your bass a bit. I set mine up for between 8 to 10 Hz.
Guys, chakster has a very valid point. Speed variation is just not a problem for modern turntables because we can't hear it. This is just a spec war. Same goes for lathes but they have to be a lot more powerful and stable because the cutting head causes way more drag and variation in drag than a stylus running in a groove. The big problem with both lathes and turntables is noise particularly rumble which is not only very audible but you can see it! Just look at your woofers dancing around wasting amplifier power and Doppler distorting everything else the woofer is doing. All our preamps use to have rumble filters, just high pass filters 3 dB down at 30 Hz. As I have mentioned in previous posts it is not uncommon for a poorly maintained lathe to rumble. I have had several discs that were so annoying I sent them back. The ones I sent back were all 180 gm "Audiophile" pressings and all were Rykodisc. I have many records that rumble a bit but not so bad that I can't listen to them. I have never been bothered by speed variation and none of the audiophiles I know have complained about it. I think that probably only rapid speed changes would be audible but our heavy platters just can't change speed that fast |
Anvil, any added friction is going to slow any table down a bit unless it has a compensatory mechanism. Most tables create an equilibrium situation which in table like the big Kuzma is probably strong enough to overcome stylus drag. In some tables like the older SOTAs you can adjust the equilibrium with the stylus down but the table itself is not compensating. This is not the case with the new ones. The Monaco is fascinating because it's resolution is so high but it is direct drive and unlike mikelavigna I do not like big magnetic things under my cartridge.
mike, there is such a thing as "carrying it to far." Why don you just stick your turntable in an isolation camber so airborne vibration doesn't get to it? I bet if you sit on one of those tables your hearing will improve:)
Ralph, What are you doing with a lathe? Atma-Sphere going to start making records?
Mike |
Mike then we agree, knock yourself out. I'm sure it is a lot of fun for you. I would rather spend my limited money on stuff that would make a substantial difference like ear plugs for my wife:)
Anvil, stylus friction is going to have the same effect regardless of bearing friction. A system with more power and inertia might not be effected as much. How the motor is coupled makes no difference. Pulsating magnetic forces under a very sensitive magnetic device is just asking for it. This is the reason most of us think direct drive tables sound terrible. I am certainly one of those although I am always open to new designs like the Monaco. There is no reason to even go there. Any improvement in speed accuracy over a good belt drive table is inaudible. It is easier to make a silent bearing if you do not have a motor wrapped around it and you do not have to worry at all about stray magnetic fields as the power of a magnetic field drops with the square of the distance.
Guyw3, that would certainly work but is more difficult to set up. Most of us just throw a strobe disc on the record while playing and set the speed while the record is playing.
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Ralph, I asked that question. It is not easy to master high quality records.
We hear the results which are not always optimal. I was just listening to Kate Bush's "Before The Dawn." The rumble forced me to turn my subwoofers down. It is a common problem with remastered albums. I assume this is from poorly maintained lathes. It is a very rare problem with older pressings. Even rarer in old classical pressings.
Anyway, who do you send the masters to for pressing?
Mike |
No kidding. Just for the record phoenix what turntable manufacturers drives do you like the best and why? |
I'm not sure if I have any QRP records but I have quite a few RTI pressings and they are great, certainly up there with the best. 3-6 months behind? So much for the death of vinyl.
Phoenix, it appears David Karmeli does not have a web site. I can find pictures of his tables but nothing on specs and design philosophy. It sure looks like he has out Kuzma'd Frank. That table looks darn massive. I understand it has an air bearing like the Walker? Nothing on price or how to order one. I have never been a fan of direct drive turntables. It seems to be the solution to a problem I do not have. None of my turntables have had speed variations bad enough that I could hear and that includes the LP 12. I instinctively do not like the idea of an oscillating magnetic device under my low output moving coil cartridge. But I can not say that I can hear a problem with that either because I have never had a direct drive table in my system. It seems that most of the reviewers prefer belt driven tables. But then there are many more belt driven tables out there than direct or idler wheel drive. |
Thanx for the description lewm. I would really like to hear the Monaco table. I could do it if I sold one of my tables.
jtimothya, yes we are very sensitive to timing but not in that way. We are sensitive to the time and volume differential between our ears. We are much more insensitive to pitch and tempo. Many musicians use various devices to tune their instruments and metronomes to set tempo.
Flutter is more audible than Wow. It is generally accepted that most of us can not here tempo and pitch variations less than 0.25%. Modern high performance turntables when new have wow and flutter levels less than 0.05% well inaudible by any of us. Relating values below this to some alteration in sound quality is difficult if not impossible. Then end result is that any body can say whatever they want. Which unfortunately means whatever anybody says is worthless without some form of scientific proof. |
jtimothya, let me explain it to you as carefully as I can. Unless you are a Martian you are bound by the same rules of human physiology the rest of us are. I shall state it again. Our brains are very sensitive to volume and phase. This information tells us where something is like that lion sneaking up behind us. Nature had no need for us to have perfect pitch and timing so without training the vast majority of us do not. How many drummers like Dave Weckyl do you know. Now try sitting down at a drum set and play like Dave. Right. Perfect pitch might even be rarer. Very few singers can hit a perfect middle C with accompaniment.
Now in regard to turntables, speed inaccuracies, wow and flutter only affect two things in music, pitch and tempo. Now since the vast majority of us are pitch and tempo stupid the very minor variations seen in high performance turntable is totally inaudible. So, if you hear a difference between two high performance tables it has nothing to do with speed inaccuracies. Different cartridges, arms, cables, setups maybe but not speed inaccuracies.
Lewm, you are so darn politically correct!
Phoenix, thanx for your input as I only know the very superficial aspects of motors and motor control. The only suggestion I have for your position is that you forgot cannabis blood level.
It is difficult to correlate opinions in terms of sound quality in regards to any piece of Hi FI equipment. Perception is personal. Nobody can see or hear exactly the same things you do without occupying your space. People do not have a very good understanding of how their psychological state at any given time can modify their behavior and perception. When you are happy you can bound up a flight of stairs two steps at a time but when you are unhappy every step is misery. Same heart, same muscles.
Perception also modifies behavior. Just watch what happens when a teenage boy sees his "girlfriend" kissing another boy. Fireworks.
Those that argue that their perceptions a paramount without understanding their own weaknesses are at best difficult to listen to as are those that come up with wacky explanations to justify their mythology.
I love to learn ways to improve the performance of my system and I also love to try new stuff. Some of It I learned about here. But, I also like truth in advertising and like real explanations for why something should sound better not mindless hyperbole
Mikelevigne, I am truly jealous. I which I had as much money as you have to spend on Hi Fi equipment.
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jtimothya, I am going to do that tomorrow! I will take an Air Force 1 with a 4 point 11 and an SME 30/12 with a 4 point 11 both with PC-1 Supreme's
and make that comparison. I already have the 30/12. mikelavigne will lend me the other $150,000 and you can come tell us which one you like better. Graham Engineering is right down the road.
You might notice that the rags do this type of comparison all the time. The problem for all these audio aficionados is that if I do this study correctly, double blinded nobody would be able to reliably tell the difference between the two except for jtimothya of course. The major attraction to turntables is mechanical. They are cool devices and we all have our perspective on what cool is. You take for instance a Hurican, a 488 and a 720s. Three very competent sports cars all around the same price. All are in the same performance envelope, All three have their champions who will swear their car is the best.....actually it is the best looking to them because that is where the real difference lies. Me, I'll take the 720s any day. mikelavigne is a financial wizard so he would take the 488 for it's resale value. jtimothya wants to be as cool as possible so he would take the Hurican. That is what turntables are.
Mikelavigne, that is what all of us long term audiophiles do. We evolve our systems over time always attempting to improve performance. You are just able to do it at a higher price point. Very few of us are going to be able to jump for DZ NHB-458's or have you gone to the 468's? Now personally I would never even listen to an amp like that. I think it is the silliest looking amplifier ever made. I would go for the Atma-Sphere MA-3.
All go and no show until you take a look inside, all beautifully hand wired point to point. You can see where the money went. Oh, and I do not have to put my amps on seismic platforms, they are under the speakers in the room below on a shelf near the ceiling attached to a concrete wall. The speaker cables are 32" long. Each amp has it's own 20 amp service:)
Mike
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Not a free fall. Interesting. I'm all ears. Active isolation? I thought a concrete foundation was pretty isolated, unless you live in California on the fault line. Tell me it's your wife that liked the look:) |
cd31, problem is you couldn't match the smell. |
mikelavigne, you ever listen to JC-1's in your system? Maybe just a slightly better value many of us can afford. |
Boy, that CS Port LFT-1 is one handsome turntable. I seriously doubt stylus drag is going to be a problem for it. The platter is massive, driven by a Kevlar string! Granite base. Wonder what it goes for. Any guesses? |
Mike, so you are a political animal after all.
ct0517, A,B and C are gross assumptions that are probably more often then not incorrect. The ceramic brakes on my car look better, last way longer and stop way better than steel brakes. The magnetic bearing in clearaudio tables performs and lasts longer than standard bearings. The Nikasil liners in my engine work better and last way longer than other cylinder liners. Why would a Koetsu not last as long as a Sumiko or an Air Tight not as long as a Kiseki. Why would a SAT arm not last as long as a Jelco. I could go on forever.
Now I have never used a string table but my meager brain can not fathom why any other string would sound better than the kevlar one CS uses on a platter that weights more than my car. They admit to the fact that it is a very slow starting table that would occur with any string. Carbon Kevlar will not stretch which I can see as a huge advantage in this instance. |
Mike, smart man. I like to theorize which sometimes gets me into trouble but I am in the camp that says "everything has a reason, cause and effect." Plus, a lot of stuff we wind up buying before we can really evaluate it like ski boots. So, you look at design and construction intelligently and pray you made the right choice. Now I have to look at what cd say in response. Off the top I would say a very stiff string would do much better than a stretchy one. In reality I would bet no one would be able to hear the difference unless the string were really stretchy (same problem as a really stretchy belt.)
Cd, I have to go look at the design of your turntable. Be back later today. |
Ct0517, Sorry for miss spelling your name. I have reviewed the design of the Verdier. It has a 16 kg platter with a reverse spindle supported by opposing magnets, belt or string drive. If the magnets are oriented correctly they should have no braking action. The reason to use opposing magnets is to lower friction and hence noise. I personally like the air bearing concept better as I am allergic to magnets near cartridges but that is me. Now, you have a very massive platter. With mass goes inertia. It does not like to move and it does not like to stop moving. In a frictionless, airless environment it would continue spinning indefinitely.
The mass of the rotor in your motor is an order of magnitude smaller. It is much easier to move and easier to stop moving. Once the turntable reaches a steady state speed it requires very little input to keep that speed going, whatever it takes to overcome friction and air resistance.
At this point the platter is really in control of the motor. Because of the relative difference in mass the platter will smooth out any irregularities in the motor. If the motor is cogging you would never be able to detect that at the platter with any instrumentation including your ears. Could you ever detect any motor noise coming down the string and infecting the platter?
That would be like a VW bug trying to tow a beached aircraft carrier. Sitting on the deck sipping a pina colada you would never even know the VW was there. Now the stretchier the string the lower any resonant frequency in the drive system would be. The Carbon Kevlar string would have a much higher resonance frequency but it does not matter because it is totally dampened by the mass of the platter. This is why Rolls Royce goes out of it's way to make the most massive cars on the planet. They ride smoother.
Ct0517 I can not argue with your ears. You do whatever you think makes your system sound better. The only reason a stiff string transfers the force of your finger flicking it is because it is stiffer. Your motor does not apply force that way. A stretchier belt will transfer just as much noise but at a lower frequency. In your example you can't hear it because the frequency is down below what most systems can reproduce. Hook up an oscilloscope and you will see it.
Mike, my daughter will be living in Shanghai for a year. She is going to look into getting the CS Port turntable. It should be much less. Rock and Roll! |
My daughter is a heavy music lover. She sang opera in collage. She is not an audiophile. Her fiance might be. He certainly gets big smiles listening to the rig.
As for the CS, it should be less expensive depending on import fees and shipping although I could have them bring it back on their flight it still has to make it through customs. There are ways though to lighten the load so to speak....if she can get one. I'll put my 4 point 14 in the second position. It is my Koetsu arm. The platter weights 27 Kg! That is 60 lb and it is stainless steel with is non magnetic and a great shield. I'll have to have a dust cover made for it. Another paltry $300.00
Good luck with the grand kids. Maybe you need to give your son in law lessons??
Mike |
Ct, I'm not going to step into that one. All I can say is you guys need to treat your doctors better so the good ones stop coming down here.
You are saying that when you cut the string it takes less time for the platter to come to a stop. That does not make sense to me. The magnets don't change in any way and you are releasing it from the drag of the motor yet it takes 1/4 of the time to stop? |
Yes, the software is all over the place. More luck than brains but when I first met my wife I had Magnepan Tympani's. Anything is an improvement after those. My kids having grown up with this stuff are certainly music lovers but it does seem like high end Hi Fi's are lower on their list of priorities. |
