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 mosin

"A $500 Technics SL1200 mkII will keep speed as accurately as a belt drive turntable costing thousands of dollars."

Maybe it will be more accurate than many turntables out there, but it isn't the end all answer to proper speed control. The reason is because it creates a sort of analog jitter in the process of maintaining the desired speed. So, if you think about it, it isn't accurate at all because both detail and dynamics suffer. A better solution is to generate perfectly tailored power to a superior motor. That can be done a variety of ways with any drive system, but you don't really fix power after the fact. A correct fix is made before it is created.
"The power generated in the US is supposed to be 60 Hz by specification."
That can be out of spec in certain places inside this country from time to time.