turntable speed control

As far as measuring the consistency of turntable platter speed - I have found nothing better than the Timeline form Sutherland Engineering, its a device that emits a laser beam pulse at very precise time intervals.  This is placed on the spindle of the turntable and a dot appears on the wall of the room the turntable is placed in.  If this dot does not move the speed of the turntable is exact - and I have yet to find any belt drive turntable thats been able to hold the position of the spot over the entire length of a LP playback.  I have run many VPI based tables with and without a SDS unit and while SDS certainly makes it a lot more speed stable it simply cannot hold absolute precise speed.  I have not tried the Phoenix unit but will some time in the future.

However, once you get a Direct Drive turntable it becomes very obvious that these are far better at maintaining the correct speed The Denon drives which we retrofit,  rebuild and sell are quite precise.  The Technics SP 10 MK2 and 3 are exceedingly more accurate in maintaining correct speed.   And by accurate I mean the laser dot emitted by the Timeline does not move on a wall 23 feet away from the turntable.

Halcro whom posts on this site frequently posted a video on youtube a while back indicating the speed accuracy of his Victor TT101 Direct Drive turntable to indicated if Stylus Drag is an issue on a Direct Drive Table
The results of this are quite obvious.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE52bsIh_ZA

  
Good listening

Peter