Turntable Speed


I own a Transrotor "Atlante" turntable. I purchased it about 2 years ago with all the available upgrades (platter and tonearm). This unit was $4500.00 without cartridge. It is a belt driven product with an outboard power supply which lowers the incoming voltage to the 18 volts the motor requires. My problem is turntable speed. My 'table speed is about 34 rpms. I could be more accurate if I had better measuring equipment. Anyway, that's about 2% over the correct speed and you can definitely tell the difference in sound quality between 34 and 33 1/3 rpm!. I was a little upset with this revelation and called my dealer about it. I also talked with the dealer's supplier. I received several reasons from these people as to why the speed was not accurate among which was that my power was "out of tolerance." But when all was said and done, none of the given reasons held water and I am now being advised that really there is nothing that can be done. That there is no defect in the equipment and if the speed problem continues to bother me, I should invest $1700.00 in a Transrotor speed controller. As I think over this, I wonder why platter speed is never mentioned or measured and reported on in the reviews for turntables in the major audio mags. (This could be because there isn't any problem, except for my 'table, or there is and no one is admitting it). To my way of thinking, platter speed has to be one of the primary functions of a turntable and that manufacturers would be making sure that their products' platter speeds were within strict specifications. At least better than 2% margin of error as is the case with my turntable.

My question is: Is platter speed error a given in this industry or is my 'table actually in need of repair? And, if platter speed is an industry problem, why are we as consumers paying thousands for equipment which actually doesn't work up to expectations?

frepec

Showing 2 responses by jaytea

I totally agree with 0thd. I owned a very highly regarded Avid Acutus (Stereophile Class A) before, and despite the fact that I really liked its sound, I decided to sell it (well..traded it in towards my SME 20/2) just because I could not stand the fact that a $11,000 hi-end turntable lacked a speed controller. Before buying it, i assumed that the speed would be accurate and rock solid for this expensive turntable but it proved me wrong.

I think you should either sell it and get something with a speed controller, or buy a controller for it. Otherwise it will drive you mad!
With all these aspects effecting turntable's speed and no practical universal way to correct it, I say every hi-end turntable SHOULD have a speed controler so the user can at least have their table run at the correct speed for a few hours listening duration.

Experienced all this, I would never buy another hi-end table if it does not offer a way to fine tune speed. Save me a lot of headache.