Very interesting. Keep us posted with the results of your listening tests!
Well Tempered reference motor vibration excessive?
I have recently purchased a used Well Tempered reference turntable. I have owned the clearaudio reference in the pastand a sme 10. If you hold the clearaudio motor in your hand there is only a mild vibration palpable, this is shown to be the case when listened to with a stethoscope.
The well tempered motor is significantly noisier via stethoscope and the held in hand vibration is quite horrendous considering it is a reference turntable.The vibrations are getting transmitted up my forearm. I wonder if this is the cause of some of the inadequacies i hear regarding this turntable from various reviewers. Apparently compared to top notch turntables there is a slight lack of detail and the bass could be better etc etc.
I would be interested to know if anyone has tried a dc motorand whether the motor vibration I have is consistent with other users.The motor does run true to 33.3 so I have no reason to belive it is faulty. I have opened the unit and serviced it and ensured the locking screws are tight.
Utilising the two subjective (though not in accurate) methods of measurement for motor vibration, i was able to bring the perceived vibrations right down with some simple tweaks. If you were to use a scale of 1 to 10, one being minimum vibration. Then the combination of the below described tweaks have reduced the vibration rating from 10 to about 3. That is it is with concentration that the vibrations are palpable when the motor is held in the hand.
By placing elastic bands around the rim of the bottom lead weight and the rim of the top circular shelf, as well as around the central section helped reduce the vibration by about 25% of the total.
Unscrewing each of the rubber feet a few turns under the motor so that they didnot touch the lead base by a further 20%.
Replacing the copper mains lead with a silver plated copper coaxial cable, with doulble outer shielding braids (bought from RS components), and using a seperate coaxial for live and neutral, by about another 50%.
Surprizingly utilising an ac regenerator (ac 240v to 12v dc to 110v pure ac .01% accurate)did not make much of a difference to the vibration subjectively perceived, either with or without the coaxial cable.!!!!! When you consider the coaxial cable cost no more than $20, and the ac regenerator over $250, that is a remarkable finding.
However, I have not been in a position as yet to get to do the audible changes to the music made by these tweaks. I will post these forward if anyone is interested in due course.
I already have plans to rewire the arm, utilise bullet phono plugs, changing the silicon fluid viscosity etc, to get it to perform better than my sme10 (heavily modified, possibly sme 30 rival now and the clearaudio ref).
Dr Luke
The well tempered motor is significantly noisier via stethoscope and the held in hand vibration is quite horrendous considering it is a reference turntable.The vibrations are getting transmitted up my forearm. I wonder if this is the cause of some of the inadequacies i hear regarding this turntable from various reviewers. Apparently compared to top notch turntables there is a slight lack of detail and the bass could be better etc etc.
I would be interested to know if anyone has tried a dc motorand whether the motor vibration I have is consistent with other users.The motor does run true to 33.3 so I have no reason to belive it is faulty. I have opened the unit and serviced it and ensured the locking screws are tight.
Utilising the two subjective (though not in accurate) methods of measurement for motor vibration, i was able to bring the perceived vibrations right down with some simple tweaks. If you were to use a scale of 1 to 10, one being minimum vibration. Then the combination of the below described tweaks have reduced the vibration rating from 10 to about 3. That is it is with concentration that the vibrations are palpable when the motor is held in the hand.
By placing elastic bands around the rim of the bottom lead weight and the rim of the top circular shelf, as well as around the central section helped reduce the vibration by about 25% of the total.
Unscrewing each of the rubber feet a few turns under the motor so that they didnot touch the lead base by a further 20%.
Replacing the copper mains lead with a silver plated copper coaxial cable, with doulble outer shielding braids (bought from RS components), and using a seperate coaxial for live and neutral, by about another 50%.
Surprizingly utilising an ac regenerator (ac 240v to 12v dc to 110v pure ac .01% accurate)did not make much of a difference to the vibration subjectively perceived, either with or without the coaxial cable.!!!!! When you consider the coaxial cable cost no more than $20, and the ac regenerator over $250, that is a remarkable finding.
However, I have not been in a position as yet to get to do the audible changes to the music made by these tweaks. I will post these forward if anyone is interested in due course.
I already have plans to rewire the arm, utilise bullet phono plugs, changing the silicon fluid viscosity etc, to get it to perform better than my sme10 (heavily modified, possibly sme 30 rival now and the clearaudio ref).
Dr Luke
6 responses Add your response