Hey Chris
You know that really got me thinking.
You are so right as I now remember listening to live tapes of our band from different nights and yes the tempo was different night to night.
I mastered our "sessions" into a tape I considered good enough to sell at venues and/or send off as a demo tape so always chose the best performance of each song whether they were from the same show or not.
We are human beings not machines so a live performance IS going to differ ever so slightly every time.
And probably true that myself (bass ) and our drummer might have ultimately drove that tempo overall.
And here we are with people worrying about 0.001% speed difference.
Lol.
|
i have maybe 20+ recordings of Beethoven’s 5th and double that of the 9th.
every one has a slightly different tempo. even by the same conductor and orchestra.
none are really wrong. just different. i do have my favorites.
which is a different issue than tonal solidity verses that very distrating slightly wa-wa sour sound of speed discontinuity. |
Ralph, What are you doing with a lathe? Atma-Sphere going to start making records? @mikelavigne We've been mastering LPs for about 5-6 years. Most of the projects we've done are local. It took some time to refurbish the machine and sort out how to operate it. Fortunately I had some help from Len Horowitz of HRS. |
Ralph, i was not the 'Mike' asking you that question. i already knew you had a lathe and mastered Lp's. |
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 |
Just some random thoughts and maybe I missed this.
In my industrial world, traditional motor absolute speed control was obtained by either servo motors/ controllers or motors with speed encoder feedback.
However in past few years drive controllers have become so sophisticated that now best speed regulation is obtained by running " open loop" with zero encoder feedback and using current feedback at the controller itself.
Now is this a possibility for TT speed control or is this how some are already controlled? |
Non-feedback motor controlIn LFT 1, the rotation control is not performed, and the constant speed rotation is left to the high moment of inertia of the 27 kg platter, creating a rotation free from unnecessary vibration caused by the control. Only the positive direction force is applied from the motor, but by using a coreless motor with less moment of inertia, the influence of the vibration is reduced. Motor rotation control with no negative feedback · The XFD method realizes a drive with the minimum fluctuation.
*XFD method: Based on a crystal oscillator with high frequency precision, a direct digital voltage generator is formed to supply a voltage with high precision without fluctuation. It is a system that was independently developed by CS Port. It is a system that eliminates fluctuation by driving a super heavy platter with light load bearing with a low inertia coreless DC motor.
the above approach is with the CS Port LFT1 turntable http://www.csport.audio/products/products-lft1-en.html |
"In my industrial world, traditional motor absolute speed control was obtained by either servo motors/ controllers or motors with speed encoder feedback.
However in past few years drive controllers have become so sophisticated that now best speed regulation is obtained by running " open loop" with zero encoder feedback and using current feedback at the controller itself.
Now is this a possibility for TT speed control or is this how some are already controlled?" It depends on the type of table. For belt drive (the LFT1 is BD), the motors are relatively high speed (300/600 RPM) with low inertia rotors so open loop speed control is possible. The SOTA Eclipse package does this with a BLDC motor run as a 3 phase AC synch motor and the motor speed is very stable and accurate. The RR tach is used to counter long term speed drift as the table warms up. Running a direct drive motor open loop is much more difficult because of the slow speed and high inertia of the platter. With no feedback, the platter speed will wobble considerably. Most of the DD tables that I’ve seen use a rotary encoder for speed feedback and a DC servo control to drive the motor. The VPI HW40 uses a magnetic ring encoder and drives the BLDC motor as a DC type using block (trapezoidal) communtation and Hall sensors. Because of the LPF in the feedback loop, the platter speed is still susceptible to oscillations, although with a heavy platter, it will move the oscillations lower in the audio band vs the light platter DD tables of the 70’s and 80’s. The HW40 does respond to variable drag on the platter, but it is quite sluggish, slowing down for ~250mS before compensation is applied and takes another 250mS to correct, so it does little to affect W&F. Current feedback is still feedback, but if implemented correctly, it can eliminate both the encoder and the delay in the feedback loop. Field Oriented Control (FOC) monitors the current in the windings and can compute the rotor flux position on a de-rotated frame of reference so the control loop operates at DC. The current control loop regulates the torque of the motor and a speed loop is wrapped around the current control loop (changing torque changes acceleration and therefore speed). The speed feedback comes from an estimator circuit that derives the back EMF signal (rotor speed) without external sensors and works well at low speeds as well as in the presence of high noise. I don’t know of any mfr that uses this method, but it would be interesting to try. |
Thx Phoenix
Great post which actually makes sense to myself. I must admit some prior posts have shot right over my head but now I am trying to think in industrial terms which is something I am at least vaguely familiar with.
We rotate, amongst other things, 900 to 1200lb steel rollers with a required very high degree of speed accuracy precision.
Think in terms of 3 phase 5 to 25hp motors for this task.
Current feedback has proven very effective at precise control AND eliminating the pesky noise problem sometimes seen on 0-10vdc and 4-20ma control feedback circuits.
|
Hi phoenixengr. why do you think VPI use trapezoidal commutation? Surely this is not optimum if they want to minimize torque ripple. Cheers |
"....why do you think VPI use trapezoidal commutation?
Surely this is not optimum if they want to minimize torque ripple." The controller is made by Elmo Motion Control (Gold Twitter Solo), and while Elmo's PC control software is fairly comprehensive, I'm not sure if the controller is capable of sinewave drive; it is not capable of sensorless operation (FOC) which would use sinewaves. Sinewave drive is considerably more complicated and would result in smoother operation, but for whatever reason, VPI chose to operate the motor in the simplest mode available, as a DC motor which uses block commutation and Hall sensors. They do some other rather strange things: The motor is designed for high power (500W) so the windings are 0.3R; not the easiest load to drive especially from a class AB output amp. The Elmo controller uses PWM output at 10kHz, which IMHO is a bad choice for use around a sensitive audio circuit like a cartridge pickup (especially MM). |
I am getting a sneaky sensation that phoenixengr
just might know a thing or two about TT motors.
|
No kidding. Just for the record phoenix what turntable manufacturers drives do you like the best and why? |
Unfortunately, I haven’t had the chance to "look under the hood" on very many of them, but based on my limited exposure:
Belt drive: American Sounds AS2000. David Karmeli not only understands high end audio, he gets the physics and engineering part right as well. His design philosophy may be unique in the industry. Full disclosure: I had a hand in designing the motor control for this table, based on the Eagle PSU and RR tach.
Direct Drive: I’ve not auditioned the new Technics tables and I don’t have a lot of technical info on them, but from what I can gather, they are doing some really sophisticated things in motor control and they have the engineering HP to do things right. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they were doing FOC.
I’m basing my observations more on an engineering perspective than an audiophile one. YMMV.
|
Anyway, who do you send the masters to for pressing? @mijostyn I've found that if the mastering is done correctly most pressing plants can do a pretty good job. But QRP stands out as the best (their pressings have noise floors that easily rival Redbook), RTI is excellent and oddly enough we've had very good results from United. One of our projects was pressed in Holland, not sure which plant but all the US plants were 3-6 months behind at the time. |
The point I tried to make earlier and which seems to have been ignored by some who might favor turntables with laissez-faire speed control is that yes, live human musicians will inevitably vary tempo during the course of a performance of a given piece of music and given conductors will pace different classical pieces differently, but that's the crux of the matter. You/I want the turntable to make no alterations of tempo that might obscure the human factor inherent to the pleasure of listening. The turntable should ideally do no editorializing, in other words. Plus there is the fact that inconstancy of turntable speed affects pitch, whereas human errors in timing produce only changes in tempo. No turntable or drive system is absolutely perfect in this respect, but that should be the goal. In my opinion, of course.
|
@lewm too modest. That should be clear to anyone (wherever their vested interests may lie).
|
Hi phoenixengr. VPI have made interesting choices in the controller and motor. You would think that Thingap would make a motor with low speed/power windings ( higher resistance ) making for finer speed control from the Elmo. All that said, the TT gets great press, so the package seems to work very well indeed. |
@richardkrebs-
ThinGap does make a different series motor (LS51, same price ~$600 in qty.) with higher pole count (higher driving freq), lower power (48W) and higher winding resistance (4Ω); it is still coreless and would be much better suited for a DD table application the the TG23x series and could be driven from a class AB amp. It’s been available for a couple of years, so I’m not sure why it didn’t get used in this case?
The HW40 gets great press because it does sound good and even measures respectably, but no where near the numbers VPI claims for W&F, speed accuracy or torque. Of all the reviews I’ve read, I don’t believe I saw a single measurement; making matters even more difficult, you need the software from Elmo (you can it download free from their website) and need to construct a serial cable to connect a PC to the controller in order to get some of the relevant measurements. Luckily, the parts are readily available thru Digikey. With the software, you can also do 78 RPM or adjust the tempo for off speed records such as the Stones Beggar's Banquet, in steps of ~0.07%.
|
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. |
|
@mijostyn ...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. Cost for the AS2000 is into 6-figures with a limited production run. Gauging a table by audible wow & flutter and believing that not hearing speed variation means there are no problems is to miss out on what the best direct drives (or other high stable accuracy tables) have to offer. Our ears are far more sensitive to time differences than we realize. Consider two transients, n seconds apart - what would n need to be for a listener to hear them merged as one, a single note? 20/1000th of a second? A string section having multiple performers are not, in virtue of their humanity, in perfect sync. That’s why one hears a harmonic shimmer when they play quickly together. Differentiation in arrival time correlates with perception of distance - exactly what we do in soundstage perception/creation - the timpani are behind the trombones. It’s an ancient skill. Dynamic transients have more initial impact with a more speed accurate table - less blur at the launch edge. Stable accuracy brings significant sonic improvement to any aspect of music through vinyl playback that involves time or frequency. I urge you to hear for yourself if it makes a difference - listen to a better direct-drive side by side with the belt or idler of your choice. |
ignore the technology and measurements.
i did......or i do every day.
i purchased the Saskia idler to place next to my Wave Kinetics NVS direct drive. both toward to top of the heap for their types. i think my system allows each to flourish. maybe not every system is as flexible.
switching arms and cartridges back and forth it's obvious they are different in a good way, neither is wrong.
the NVS bigger and more organized in the sound stage. the stage edges get expanded. no limit to dynamics. very neutral tonally.
the Saskia has amazing energy, images more holographic and astonishing tonal density. more weight and impact to the bass and it digs deeper in flow and timbre.
both tt's are very good in the areas where the other is outstanding.....and different types of music are better served by each.
love them both. |
Pursuant to mijostyn's concern about an "oscillating magnetic device" under his LOMC, I do believe in fact that in some designs one can hear an issue, faintly. I have guessed that EMI from the motor may be in fact what some claim to be caused by "cogging". Coreless motors are much less prone to generate this interference, based on my listening to several different brands and models in my own home system, but still, I am guessing. If you read the L07D website, you will see that some have recommended adding some shielding under the platter to ameliorate a faint glaze with the L07D. It's not actually a problem you can hear; it's more like a problem you did not know you had, until you eliminate it. That was my experience when I added an extra bit of shielding between the motor and the underside of the platter on my L07D, per recommendations on the website. Paradoxically, the L07D uses a coreless motor. It also comes with a thick stainless steel platter sheet, which I am guessing was meant to function as a shield. The Technics SP10 Mk3, on the other hand, while it does have a massive iron core motor compared to others, has no issue I can hear. Possibly because it already has a massive and thick platter assembly that does a good job also as a shield. My old Mk2 definitely did have a kind of gray-ish coloration (two samples over 5 years or so in my home system) which could have been due either to EMI from the motor or from.... So, for any particular model of DD, there is either no problem or there is a simple and inexpensive solution to it. The trade-off in speed constancy is to my ears well worth it.
While we're at it, the Lenco idler design places a big motor under the platter as well. I guess the Garrard does to. In any case, I hear no such issue with my much modified Lenco. I would characterize its "sound" in much the same way as Mike L characterized the Saskia, albeit the Saskia is a Lenco on steroids and surely does everything better.
|
Dear @jtimothya : """
Dynamic transients have more initial impact with a more speed accurate table - less blur at the launch edge. ""
Yes, that's one of the reasons about, other is that any kind of vibrations generated by the analog rig are better damped/controled.Transient accuracy and speed is where the sound of music strats followed by the developed harmonics. It's the " engine " of music reproduction in home.
@mikelavigne said: """
the Saskia has amazing energy, images more holographic and astonishing tonal density. more weight and impact to the bass... """
that comes from that transient accuracy/speed and very good controled vibrations throug the analog rig.
In the other side I don't think that differences in betweeen the Saskia and NVS TTs been really high but only differences on some important characterisrtics of the performance that goes more with Mike priorities but this is only my " imagination " because ML is a true expert audiophile and music lover and he knows.
R. |
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. |
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. Didn't think it needed saying, my account presumes listeners with two ears. More insensitive (less sensitive) to pitch and tempo ... than what? Time and volume differentials? You mean frequency and amplitude differentials? Pitch is simply ordering sounds on a scale - that scale is frequency. Tempo is pace or speed, impossible without time. At the stylus groove interface, the cartridge provides amplitude, the table provides frequency. The conductor is the orchestra's clock. |
"ignore the technology and measurements.
i did......or i do every day." I never understood this position. While the sound produced by a component might be the only thing that matters to some people, perception is highly subjective and dependent on many external factors (mood, daily hearing condition, type of music, room acoustics, blood alcohol content, etc.). It is also personal to the individual and not easily or accurately reproducible or even communicated to others. To ignore science and technology when designing audio components is wrought with peril, and makes you a hobbyist, not a designer. Design decisions should be informed by established theory and practice, and the actual sonic results (and measurements) should confirm those choices and correlate with the design theories. The more connections between the two realms (rules of correspondence), the more certain you can be that the sonic results are accurate and not due to some subjective factor, bias or confusion of the senses. Measurements are used by manufacturers in their specifications and marketing materials to promote their products as "better" than the competition. Verification of these measurements prevents mfrs from making outlandish or misleading statements about their products and serves to protect consumers. |
I never understood this position. especially if you take it out of context. and then twist it around. this is a forum for listeners. my whole point, not the 5-10 percent you lifted, was that we have to listen to what these turntables do without preconceived notions about what we might expect. what does this tt actually do? and then i went on the relate what i heard from each turntable. obviously i invested significant dollars to enjoy these turntables (supporting guys like you) partly because of my view of their technology and execution. i’m not blind to it. but there is a point where you listen objectively and let the music speak. i’m never going to be someone who has to first agree with and understand the technology and whether it fits what my engineering prof told me. others need this and i say knock yourself out with it. but for me the technology only interests me only up to a point. measurements are important. and i do agree there is a relationship with turntable performance between measurements and performance. but no matter the measurements the final arbiter is our ears. i want to know what people heard from their turntable. that is where the proof is. i was one of the first ones to order the AS-2000 from David Karmeli that you were involved with, but i later changed my mind. i heard his AS-1000 at his home. sure, i appreciated the technical merits of it, but then cleared my mind to hear it on it’s own merits. it was awesome sounding for sure. what was significant to me was the other four turntables David had sitting there that i also heard and how the AS-1000 compared. not the tech. i have read your posts here with genuine interest; of course at a particular point it goes completely over my head. i appreciate your participation on this thread. and i do care about the technology and especially observe the degrees of apparent execution of various turntables. but mostly i listen and follow my ears. if you limit your customers to the ones who truly understand and can converse in the technology you work with that would seem to be a bit self destructing. but good luck with it. you might consider being more understanding of those who don't need to know everything. |
A couple of corrections: I no longer sell audio components or make any money from designing them. This is purely a hobby for me as I'm interested in the technology (for now).
The 5 or 10% of your post I responded to was the only relevant part of your rather declaratory statement; the rest of your post had little or nothing to do with addressing your bold claim. I did a direct copy and paste quote, so I'm not sure how I twisted it?
Your last post does a much better job of explaining your position regarding the proper role of measurements vs listening. Thanks for clarifying.
It's certainly not my intention to be inconsiderate towards others who may not fully understand the technology, quite to the contrary, my intention is to help educate. If someone has questions, I'd invite them to ask or to do a google search (it's how I find a great deal of the information I seek).
|
As a (biological) scientist myself, I think that "what we have here is a failure to communicate", to quote the chain gang boss in "Cool Hand Luke". Motors and motor controller technology have their own jargon that tends to mystify those who have not been formally educated in the respective disciplines. (I am reminded of some smart friends of mine who complained they did not understand even the title of one of my published papers, when they took it upon themselves to look it up.) I sometimes feel as they did, when I read about motors and motor controllers, for example, one or two of your posts on this thread. Moreover, I can grasp the meanings eventually by googling some of the more obscure terminology, but I tend to forget the fine points, in between discussions such as this. Therefore, I have to be content with generalities drawn from your posts (Phoenix) and those of a very few others who really understand this stuff. And then I have to take refuge in my own listening experiences. Like you said, we each will hear differently. ML is using state of the art turntables, in my opinion, so it doesn't really matter. I readily believe his testimony. By the same token, I really value your posts as a basis for my own further education in this area, Phoenix, and I would not like to see you leave this forum. Keep stretching our knowledge base, by all means.
|
Dear @mikelavigne @phoenixengr : """
measurements are important. and i do agree there is a relationship with turntable performance between measurements and performance. but no matter the measurements the final arbiter is our ears. """
yes, that's true but depends the ears of who and I mean the expertise of those " ears ".
Trhough the years your " ears " were exposed to the best of the best audio systems other than your own " dream " system so the validity of your opinions are different of the validity of mines.
In the other side the ears of any one of us were exposed to live events in many different ways that made it that each one of us be biased in different way.
When I attend to live music events ( I do often. ) I like to seat at near field position, not always but around 75% of times and when I seated 5 rows back the experience is really different and if I go 10 rows back even more different.
Maybe that's why for me the attack/transient response is so critical and the reproduction in a home audio system tell me a lot of that system. I remember that you posted/told me that overcthe time your home seat position listening to your system " bit by bit " get closer/near fierld to the speakers and that's a good thing for me but normally people do not listen at nearfield position so are biased in different way and with different sound/music reproduction priorities.
All those is full of sujectivity more than objetivity/measurements. But as you said measurements are important.
A problem with measurements is that are not in precise way measuring what we " listen " to tell us why we are listening what we listening. This is very complicated to do it because in a scientific way/explanation everything we listen can be measured IF we know what and how measure it and till now I don't know any mathematic model that can do that. So we have to trust in our " challenged " ears and that's why the learning ladder of our ears is a very long one with " hundreds " of steps/treads.
In his first post to you Phoenic posted:
"""
and makes you a hobbyist, not a designer """
and that's what you posted in your wide explanation about: we are hobbyst/audiophiles and certainly not designers but the technical knowledge levels of gentlemans like Phoenix always are welcomed because is good road for all of us to stay growing-up.
R.
|
lewm
As a (biological) scientist myself, I think that...
>>>>I’m sensing an big old Appeal to Authority coming up. |
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.
|
I have not run from lions but I can hear pitch variations like no tomorrow. It is the variation that is the problem. Weather the pitch is correct to a tuning fork or not is not that important. But the band needs to tune to themselves. Kind of blue ,Miles Davis album, is off speed by a mile. But the whole band was off and the pitch did not vary. Lots and lots of singers can not hold a note with stable pitch. Not sure how many people can hear that?...
Enjoy the ride
Tom |
Mikelevigne, I am truly jealous. I which I had as much money as you have to spend on Hi Fi equipment. hard to know how to react to that. might be a compliment, or something else. i would only say that it’s taken me many years to assemble my system and most of the pieces have been resident for almost a decade. i’m not a rich guy, just relentless, and old enough for that to matter. and when i built my room and first moved into it 15 years ago i had expensive gear, but the room sounded like crap. over another 10 years it was not much better. then after learning and making many mistakes i did figure out how to get the room to work. and getting the room to work was almost free in terms of dollars, although it took literally 9 months of constant effort to complete (details on the my system page comments down 10 or so posts if you are interested). finally my expensive gear could really work properly. and likely a few levels less gear would be quite effective.....as well. my point being that throwing money at it is not what works. working at it is what works. we can all do that. i feel better about the system/room tuning progress i’ve made than having shiny toys. not that i don’t like my toys. i certainly do. and work 6 days a week for many years to have them. hope that does not come off as too defensive, but felt i needed to respond. |
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.
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.
In not all but in some respects I don't think what we each are saying is all that far apart. The ability to detect timing differences is a necessary condition for assessing tempo; the ability to hear frequency differences is likewise a prerequisite for gauging pitch. I assume you believe you're making a deductive argument.
Validity is one thing, the truth value of premises and conclusions is something else. Saying something like "
the vast majority
of us are pitch and tempo stupid" is silly. The only thing I can think of to explain the main quoted comments above is perhaps there is not enough experience yet with high performance tables and their comparison. I write this so others interested in a purchase and who consider evaluating their choices understand that the two most critical physical/technical factors for a table are stable speed accuracy and low noise. The Ideal evaluation of two tables is to have the only difference in a comparison be the tables themselves. Same cartridge, same tonearm, cables, entire rest of the systems and room are identical.
Critical sonic evaluation between tables is possible with a playing field level. Under such conditions it is easy to hear differences in stable speed accuracy and noise in terms of listening to music. Granted it is unusual to read about such a comparison, but that is exactly what is found in coverage of the Monaco 2.0 from two years ago. Here were two similar tables but with clear physical differences, both having highly stable accurate speed measurements with one set of measurements much better than the other and likewise clearly different sonic differences. Fwiw, per the standard DIN measurement, wow & flutter were unmeasureable. |
|
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
|
ok, since we are in a free fall anyway here we go......
back in the day (in spring 2001) i had borrowed Atma-Sphere MA2 Mk (something or other, i’m sure Ralph will jump in to clarify). had them in my system for a couple of weeks, and was about to order a pair. very impressed other than my wife thought they were ugly. then the friend who loaned me the MA2’s called me to tell me about some other tube amps he had, the 75 watt Tenor OTL’s. i went to listen to those and preferred them to the MA2’s. the Tenor was just better to my ears. more fleshed out and natural sounding....with a magical mid range transparency and sparkle, even though it had quite a bit less power. so i went with the Tenors.
three years later, after a number of Tenor OTL explosive events, i had the opportunity to try this new solid state stereo amp, the darTZeel 108. here was a solid state amp that did not sound solid state, it had that breath of life of tubes, but the low noise floor of solid state. i loved it.
i still love it. i’ve had some pretty awesome tube amps in my system to run against the big darts. the big darts are still here. (if i ever stop buying turntables, arms and cartridges i will upgrade my 7 year old 458’s to the new 468.....but not yet).
my reference sound now 18 years later is still that Tenor OTL. and the darts deliver it....and much more.
and you have every right to your opinion on the look of the darTZeels. opinions are free.
a note about Atma-Sphere; no one takes better care of customers than Atma-Sphere, and i love the sound of their amps. and Ralph is a great guy and very helpful on the forums. i just don’t happen to own them. i’ve highly recommended them to many over the years.
basically i’m a tube guy who owns solid state.
much respect for your amp install approach, but a useful discussion of the details of active isolation is too deep for a brief comment. it's a big subject. maybe another day? |
@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.
|
That’s also true of most of us here, isn’t it? i suppose it depends on your definition of ’here’. on an analog oriented thread like this one, i’d say most have, or prefer, tubes or a tube like presentation. otherwise in general maybe a bit different. just my 2 cents. i do think that darTZeel solid state does get as close to the positive attributes of tubes as any solid state. and avoids the worst of solid state similarly. even though it's got that red and gold 'ironman' look. |
mikelavigne, you ever listen to JC-1's in your system? Maybe just a slightly better value many of us can afford. |
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. |
i'm happy to talk more about my system (or my experiences) on a separate thread or my system thread. or not. but not here. with all due respect. and i'm happy to continue our dialog if you want to. |
Mike (we're all on a first name basis, right? ;-), I would love to hear your findings in regard to active isolation. I saw and heard a Herzan (under Audiogon member folkfreak's EAR-Yoshino table), and am sold on extreme degrees of isolation. Not many have a Herzan, or even a Minus-K passive platform; a dedicated thread would be great---Eric. |
@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.
|
|
mikelavigne, you ever listen to JC-1’s in your system? Maybe just a slightly better value many of us can afford. i’ve met John Curl a few times, and had his CTC Blowtorch preamp design in my room for a few days once when my friend, the dear departed Bob Trump (who also was involved in the JC-1), visited me. but only heard the JC-1 amps at shows, never in my own system. a real giant killer for sure. you could do a lots worse for 4x the dollars. agree it is one of the better modestly priced amplifiers ever and could handle most speaker loads easily. i have zero negative things to say about it. maybe the best of the current crop of class D amps might compete on dollar value. but i’ve not really paid close attention to those products to know. not been in the market for an amplifier for a long time. |
