Why According to some Turntable extremists Pitch Control and Direct Drive is Sacrilege?
Ah it was you Bruce : ) Please to meet you again. Firstly, your deck is the most interesting thing since Salvation in modern High End really, IMHO. Of course the tables are different, yours is made of metal both platter and base, Vic´s is slate with aluminium platter, and the tables look different. Both platters/spindles have very tight tolerances and practically weight the same, platter damping techniques are quite different too, though. Different motors yet both very high quality. Yet there is something very special in both designs that takes these decks to a higher performance level, namely the maglev spindle. I know exactly was this means because I´m experienced too. The maglev simply works. That´s why I call your design as an incarnation of Salvation, you see. The Anvil is another implementation to the speed stability subject. The essence is the spindle ass´y, the heart of the turntable. For me there is no mystery. There are not so many that sophisticated maglev designs in the market, I´m afraid... |
@chakster You really should get use to adding to your Japanese DD obsession diatribes with the caveat...."in your opinion"...not everyone does or is required to be that narrow of mind and sight to enjoy their music , played back their way. Some folks don't want to have to build a massive plinth and modifications to motor drives that actually sound terrible without that expense. So they really are in many cases incomplete for some. I own all drives. They all have as I said before, their own strengths and weaknesses, their own sound which for some, that sound is the preference THEY choose. All the ranting and knocking down of others choices and labeling what they choose as cheap junk and yours as the best choice for all, doesn't make it so. It makes you come off as unable to allow let alone even entertain the fact others choose for their needs and wants and don't really care about what you or anyone else claims as fact. Its just your opinion, and that I respect and your entitled to it. You just need to realize your not in any way entitled to belittle or force your narrow view of things on others as gospel. They are also entitled to have the right to their own opinion and it be respected as such..... till your given the official title of The authority on turntables. ...it's just your opinion. The nice thing about opinions when respected, people can absorb and learn new things. Thats how an open mind and an open forum works. When it parades opinions as fact with personal jabs it becomes something less functional and less knowledge is willingly shared and those that push their opinions often don't even know the experience they are shutting themselves away from ..... |
One thing that tends to be overlooked in this endless debate is that belt drive is more economically viable for the "cottage industry" turntable manufacturer. A lot of the, in my view, baseless criticism of direct drive goes back to the 70s/80s when there was something of a smear campaign to promote certain British belt drive models against Japanese direct drives. The truth was that the combined profits of all the cottage industry manufacturers back then wouldn’t account for a fraction of the turntable R&D costs of a company like Technics at the time. VPI’s recent introduction of a very pricey, and I’m sure very great, DD model confirms that small manufacturers can only entertain this type of technology at prices way above what most people would find affordable. As for any harshness in the mid range, I’ve never heard this in my own Technics SL1600 Mk2, though I did get a massive improvement in overall sound quality by fitting a KABusa silicone damper to the arm and sitting the deck on Audio Technica AT-605 feet. DD is no different from belt drive in that it can be tweaked in a number of ways. Ultimately everyone must decide which type of turntable is best for them. There are no rights and wrongs, just opinions. Use your ears... |
@has2be I don’t care about belt drives, it’s a priori inferior technology. There is a belt with compliance, low torque .. this is what i never liked. This is enough for me to ignore this technology forever. No single belt drive can give me what a Direct Drive can, been using japanese DD motors for about 25 years. Two Luxman PD-444, Two Victor TT-101, one Denon DP-80 is what i have now for the main system. Sold my Technics SP-10mkII and SP-20. If you ever seen me recommending Technics for other users it’s because nothing can compete with the current price for a brand new Technics G or GR, only some vintage Direct Drive TT can be better. And nothing can compete with the prices for top quality vintage DD like Denon DP-80, you can’t buy anything like that for the money people asking for DP-80 drive for example. It is a steal, best deal ever. Your belt drive is a joke in this price range up to $1500, considering a good belt drive for $1200-1500 is a dream, shops selling entry level turntables for students for that money nowadays, for this price you can only buy some plastic toys on the modern market (made in china). As i said some belt drives that i believe can be good cost $30 000 (like top Micro Seiki) and thank you, i’m better off with my Luxman PD-444 DD for under $3000 or even Technics SP-10mkII for $1500. The prices for Garrard 301 are insane! So if you have unlimited budget for all those overpriced belt drives or idler you’re free to buy them all. But motivating people to buy a cheap junk belt drives is not what i’d like to do on the public forum. When you’re talking about some turntables please add the models and prices, i have no idea what you’re talkling about. While vintage Japnese Direct Drive are the most reasonably priced High-End turntables on the market it is much better to buy them for those who does not have unlimited budget. And i’m not talking about some cheap modern junk, i’m talking about exceptional Direct Drive turntables from the 70s/80s, they are still 10 times cheaper than any belt of idler pretedning to be good. Personally i’ve never paid more than $1500 for any top vintage Direct Drive i’ve mentioned here (with express delivery to my door from all over the world). What $1500 belt drive can compete with Luxman PD-444 designed for two tonearms in a superveavy plinth, or with Denon DP80 and coreless Victor TT-101 ??? P.S. As much as i hate $15k modern cartridges, i hate those $30k belt drives too, i have no idea who’s buying them. Technics charge for an SP-10R with coreless motor just $9k, even this big number is a bargain compared to many high-end belt drives on the market. And SL-1200G is a bargain at $4k with the same coreless DD motor. |
The Anvil Turntable is a very special design, actually it remains me of another great modern TT, the Salvation designed by Vic the Magician at Trans-Fi Audio in the UK (well of course). At the time, a couple of years back I was planning to make my own TT and just came across the Anvil Turntables online. I suddenly realized that I was looking at an incarnation of Vic´s Salvation. What a gorgeous design, so simple and beautiful ! So I got in contact with Bruce to make an appropriate motor for my platter I had had a few months already. Well, you know I was very tempted to just buy the Anvil but I had my plan to complete. Bruce was very helpful but we faced platter size problems with fitting his motor to my a bit larger platter. Long story short, we couldn´t solve our problem so I gave up ... What a shame. Now I can´t find his turntable shop online anymore. Is he still making them, what happened to Anvil ? |
@chakster Yes , of course the same arm n cart. Apples to apples, always. I'm really not as impressed with specs as you seem to be. Wow and flutter is but one measurement and also one with dubious formulas behind its final claims. Not really seeing the reason for you to say that .025 for a DD needs to be lower to be a better table. Its the same as your Lux 444, a table I owned a lifetime ago which you praise but now what are you actually saying? Its not up to par? Specs mean little without all the accompanying perameters to do no harm to that tiny signal. Self noise and rejection of outside vibrations is more important than .008 rpm off speed by a large margin IMHO anyway. What does a DD motor on a cutting lathe have to do at all with playing them back. THAT'S apples to avacodos. No music is played or noise in the room when a cutting lathe cuts grooves and sits on a secure floor on a stabilized and isolated stand. Your home environment is more hostile for noise, static, reflection and deflection of floors and walls . It means nothing as far as the superiority that a turntable needs to be DD to be the best. Thats just nonsense. Any honest music loving anologue head will know all drives offer some exceptional playback regardless of what biased zealots claim. We have preferences for sound, looks, and the ergonomics of use we gravitate towards. They all have strengths and weaknesses no matter how low some formulated spec is. It's no guarantee it will sound it's best or be the best or be the general consensus that it is in fact all that. There are a lot, a real lot of non DD tables that many prefer over the technics and others. Thats proof, generalizations and biased ownership are the worst forms of choice for all. Best for those that can't acknowledge others right to choose what suits others needs and preferences of sound. I've heard very good belted units, DD's and idler drives. Very good examples of all drives exist for superb playback. In fact I heard a very well sorted idler drive make an expensive technics DD sound anemic in comparison just yesterday. Like the folks who like the sound of their Rega over a DD......it doesn't make them wrong and your bias right. It just makes them enjoy a choice they made and prefer over something like DD that they hear as hard unenjoyable to THIER hearing , not yours or mine. I like and prefer choice and the flavor some drives bring to certain music also. Choice is good or the only question asked on this forum if some had their way would be " so what color did you get your technics in?"...... |
@kps25sc I owned a Nakamichi TT for years, direct drive made as good as the Japanese could make them back then. Tried several arms, including a Forsell linear air bearing arm, it never sounded really good. Which one? Probably The Dragon CT ? Because their best and extremely rare today TX-1000 was probably made by Micro Seiki. |
If a direct drive sounds brittle to one persons ears and pleasing to another......it’s why we have choices for our own tastes, and not just for the zealots of one drive choice. Do you compare different turntables with the same tonearm/cartridge ? The .025 wow and flutter of a good direct drive , on the surface is impressive but it’s just one thing of many that harms playback. A good belt drive with .05 wow and flutter , as much as some direct drive and idler zealots scream, will be unoticed by most as a problem at all. A good DD has lower wow and flutter: 0.015 Denon DP-80 and Technics SP-10 mkIII 0.02 Victor TT-101 0.025 Luxman PD-444 and new Technics SL1200GAE And don't forget that cutting lathe is Direct Drive too |
Generalization and over zealous ownership biases. .... Two of the absolute worst criteria to choose most audio, but especially turntables , and the arms and cartridges needed to complete the job. Many think direct drive is the " only " choice for best of in a field with exceptional belt and idler drives when executed properly are preferred by many. If a direct drive sounds brittle to one persons ears and pleasing to another......it’s why we have choices for our own tastes, and not just for the zealots of one drive choice. They ALL, have strengths and inherent weekness’s and all are not equal in their own camps or against each other. Direct drive and the claim of perfect pitch with all the faults some hear and others are bias blind to ignore , is just a preference. Like belt drives some more accurate than some realize and others that are not as accurate but have executed all other perameters to remove self noise. The .025 wow and flutter of a good direct drive , on the surface is impressive but it’s just one thing of many that harms playback. A good belt drive with .05 wow and flutter , as much as some direct drive and idler zealots scream, will be unoticed by most as a problem at all. Thats about 16 thousands of an rpm off or .6 seconds off after an entire side. Some claim to hear it....I think they are full of it. Belts can suffer the same with a power supply constantly adjusting apposed to minor corrections . Their is no one drive choice is better in my view. They all have brands/models that excell, and that suck ,both in performance and value (price). Turntables and phono preamplifiers I think an open mind is better than a personal biased closed in narrow view of what OTHERS should like. We all hear differently and focus on different points of music, genres, frequency extremes etc... What’s wrong with choice let alone mine over yours..... |
Uber, the website “Lenco Heaven” will tell you everything you could want to know about the L75, and more. There are a few inexpensive vintage tonearms that are drop-in replacements for the original. And then you’ve got something really good. You can also read about the crazy things that others have done, with the L75 as a basis. Apologies to everyone else for stealing this thread for a moment. I will cease to spout off on Lenco. |
Thank you very much Lewm. Very useful and informative. I am certainly intrigued by the Lenco especially after you had basically the same combo as I presently have , Nottingham Spacedeck and Walker controller and think the Lenco came out better. Would be interesting to see how a stock but good condition Lenco would fare in same comparison. From what I can gather the stock Lenco arm is pretty heavy so will have to read up on suitable carts as well. |
I guess we can add platter mat like gunmetal Micro Seiki CU180 or CU-500 on the platter to change the weight, also a record weight like Micro ST-10 on top. Then we can compare the sound with ot without mats/weight. It's not necessary to change the platter itself. Those Micro Seiki accessories are not for every turntable, but many turntables can accept them. |
Uber, This is all nothing but my opinion based on owning two consecutive Lenco L75s, one that I bought from John Nantais with one of his heavy plinths and his other tweaks, and the other that I bought absolutely stock (NOS) and tweaked myself. First, I never listened to my NOS L75 before modifying it, but most experienced Lenco persons say the OEM unit can sound very good, with the Achilles heel being the tonearm. Yet, there are those who defend the tonearm as at least being OK. I really liked the Nantais Lenco, but I was bent on building one with a slate plinth, so I sold my Nantais version and had created a slate plinth for my OEM Lenco, using a 65-lb slab of Pennsylvania slate and the pattern provided by Peter Reinders (do a search on that name); it was cut with a waterjet using Peter's pdf file to program the machine. I then also purchased a massive aftermarket bearing made by "Jeremy" in England. I had the platter painted with a thick coat of vibration-absorbing paint, and I further dampened it using large O-rings stretched around the circumference, below the playing surface. Last, I regulate platter speed using the aforementioned Phoenix Eagle PS and Roadrunner tach. You don't have to do all or any of these things to get a nice sounding turntable for the cost of an L75 alone. I paid $500 for my NOS one, but good used ones are typically around $300, or at least they were, back then. I would say that my slate Lenco stacks up along with all my DD turntables except the SP10 Mk3 and the L07D, but the differences are not night and day. The latter two DDs are just a bit more completely neutral. You should go to the website "Lenco Heaven" for more information. 13blm, In my opinion, there are two basic schools of turntable design: heavy platter/weak motor vs relatively lightweight platter/strong motor, typically with speed regulation. As you and others have said, the heavy platter itself provides a form of speed stability due to its rotational inertia. Also "weak motor" always means belt drive, because the motor of a DD would have to be very powerful in order to motivate a heavy platter, e.g., the Technics SP10 Mk3 with its 21-lb platter and massive hi-torque motor. Avid turntables are examples of belt drives with relatively light platters and strong motors. Most other high end belt drives are massive platter/weak motor types. (If you want rotational inertia to keep constant speed, you don't want a powerful motor that can disturb the equilibrium.) Also, with a belt drive, you get the mechanical advantage of the small pulley driving a much larger wheel (the platter), and therefore a weak motor can work. I don't like blanket statements, like a heavy platter is always better. It depends upon how you want the speed to be maintained. |
Oh, I forgot to mention. It is not so much the weight but where the weight is placed. Ideally it should be at the periphery of the platter. Too much weight and you wear your bearing out faster. Out of balance and you wear your bearing out faster. The best way to go if you wanted to increase the flywheel effect is a periphery ring like VPI, Kuzma and Clearaudio make. Just because a platter weights more does not mean that it is better. |
We are very insensitive to pitch. Very few humans have perfect pitch. What we are very sensitive to is amplitude and phase. You have to be able to locate that enemy or prey. If you were playing along with a record and wanted to match pitch so it didn't sound as if you are out of tune pitch control would be handy but as an audiophile all we care about is 331/3, 45 and sometimes 78. Rumble is way more annoying than anything else. |
The extra 50 lb stainless steel platter was added on top of the original lead platter with no pressure on the air bearing. With crossed fingers the compressor was started, and the bearing did it’s job without complaining. I give the platter a startup push and target speed is reached in about 30 seconds. The power supply actually ramps power up and down in the startup fase to minimize belt slip/wear. The belt runs on a sub platter that is also the upper part of the air bearing , and is relatively short, custom made for me by Origin Live in the UK. The extra 50 lb gives you better image stability, and improved dynamics and bass. I did not expect the level of improvement that where the result. |
You hit the Nail on the head!!! Heavy platters for belt drives is the way to go. The difference in sound is huge. I feel need to build a heavier platter. Have one at 33 and another at 40 lbs. Most of the lead is in the outer radius so that helps alot. How do you set a 100 lb platter on the bearing??? What was the difference in sound with the extra 50 lbs??? Enjoy the ride Tom |
I would not call it treble problems, the treble is just cleaner without correction. The heavy platter in combination with very low friction imparts a stability on its own, very little correction is needed. I still use the Road Runner for calibration, on days with large power fluctuations, a short connection with the needle in the groove brings speed up to 33.333 rpm, and it stays there without additional correction. |
My Notts turntable sounded way way better after I inserted a Walker Audio Precision Motor Controller into the AC supply and calibrated the speed. However, everything associated with speed stability (e.g., pitch stability most easily detected with piano music) got even better when I replaced the Notts with a Lenco L75. And the Lenco got better with the addition of the Phoenix Engineering stuff, including the RR. Once the Lenco is up to speed, the RR feedback is doing very little; you can see that by the frequency with which the unit tells you it is making corrections. The frequency of flashing goes way down to once every several revolutions, whereby the unit is making corrections on the order of less than .01 rpm, up or down. So I don't see how the RR corrections could be causing any audible treble problems, but you hear what you hear. |
I owned a Nakamichi TT for years, direct drive made as good as the Japanese could make them back then. Tried several arms, including a Forsell linear air bearing arm, it never sounded really good. I gave up on analog for many years and embraced the new digital formats, but something was always missing. The best i heard back then was Townshend Reference and Maplenoll Ariadne, so when it came time to find a TT that’s what i decided to buy. A Maplenoll Ariadne Signature came for sale on eBay and i jumped on it. Air bearing, 60 lb lead platter, belt drive,and linear air bearing arm. Very nice sounding TT with excellent bass and dynamics, especially with a PS audio regenerater supplying stable power. Of course i could not leave well enough alone, a Phoenix Eagle, and Road Runner where soon added for speed control and additional 50 lb of steel platter was added to the mix. The now 110 lb plater runs very stable, a variation of 0,001 rpm up and down is normal after warmup. I prefer the sound without the Road Runner correcting the speed, the micro adjustments are subtle and not heard as pitch variations, but more like a slight glazing in the treble. |
My experience shows opposite. I have used Nottingham Analog Spacedeck with Spacearm for 8 year, when I compared it to my friend's Lenco L75 (with a simple RB250 arm). We played classical piano music, and I was shocked how much Lenco was more precise in rhythm reproduction. Piano playing had a sense and message with Lenco and it was like a set of unconnected sounds with Nottingham. After that I bought raw Lenco L78. I added a heavy plywood plinth and vintage SME 3009 tonearm. I got much better PRAT, bass details, tone (especially on piano and organ), separation of instruments on complex music and musicality. In term of dynamic Lenco and Nottingham where similar. Nottingham wasn't a bad turntable but I clearly preferred Lenco. |
In belt drive, fast spinning motor has vibration, rubber belt has compliance, and plus to it friction of a needle on vinyl in not a constant. You can get an ideal belt drive only in laboratory conditions. I like idler and good DD, but I hate belt drive like many other modern Hi-End delusions like: low sensitive box speakers, bright tweeters, 1KW transistor amplifiers, $10K cables ... |
My goat is hard to get, but shows up occasionally. The forces in well designed oil and air bearings essentially prevent what you described above. There is no contact, or wear or "tilting", generally. my bigger point is bearing design accounts for much of the sound of a turntable especially in dynamics. Low friction bearings make low torque motors look huge, extra torque just adds noise and cogging Regards Bruce Anvil Turntables ( Btw, I have my company idled right now so have nothing to sell) |
13blm, just to continue this conversation, I would point out that the bearing of a belt drive turntable is under a unique stress that does not pertain to direct drive and most idler drive turntables, in that there is a sideways force pulling on the spindle shaft. In theory this could cause uneven wear, and eventually result in a minute amount of wobble. Not to mention that this force in the horizontal plane can also add noise. I am bringing this up for fun debate purposes only, not to get your goat. |
Melm, so, where is it that I don’t know what I’m talking about? I own an eagle and road runner. Together they run my Lenco very well and accurately. The servo device in the Kenwood L07D also has a loose operating point in that it only makes corrections when speed has slipped a certain amount and that’s part of the reason for the large heavy platter, So that rotational inertia as well as the servo feedback serve to maintain a constant speed.. My point was that since modern turntables of all types are more and more adopting speed correction devices, it hardly behooves one to criticize vintage direct drive turntables for employing a servo feedback mechanism. I said more than once in my previous posts that some of them work better than others. So what do you want from me? Maybe it’s best not to preface one’s remarks with an insult. Also, I am not certain of this, but I might take issue with your description of the function of the eagle and Road Runner. The manual says that there is a blinking light in the road runner read out that indicates when a correction is being made. During run up one sees that light blinking with at least every revolution. Once approximate correct speed has been attained, the light blinks much less frequently but still irregularly.This indicates that there is more going on with the eagle and roadRunner than simply making a correction every three rotations of the platter. |
Fremer is a salesmen, he is not an engineer. For most of audiophiles "DD sound" associated with Technics 1200. One friend of mine who had tens of vintage DD, ID and BD turntables in his home called Technics 1200 the worst DD turntable ever made. "Digital" sound of some DD turntables came from "cogging effect" of multi-pole core electrical engines but not from speed adjustment. Coreless motor DD with descent speed controller and light platter sounds very "analog". Belt drive lover have to knew that vinyl lacquer cutting for vinyl is done on DD turntable. So guys, in any case you listen hated DD. |
@lewm wrote: " I would point out that the modern trend in the most advanced belt-drive designs is to have an outboard motor controller. A subset of those devices incorporate a feedback mechanism that transmits platter speed errors back to the controller which then sends a message to the motor to correct the error. In addition, we have the recent outboard devices, like the Phoenix Engineering pieces, that set up a feedback mechanism for platter speed control and can be added to even older belt-driven or idler-drive turntables to improve speed stability. So, it hardly seems logical to disparage direct-drive turntables for incorporating a quartz-locked feedback mechanism that makes speed corrections. (Does Fremer realize this?)" I’m afraid you don’t really know what your’e writing about. The Eagle-Roadrunner combo, which I use, takes a measure of speed, and therefore corrections to a 20 pound platter, about once every three revolutions. It takes several more revolutions for the correction(s) to have full effect. A very smooth process. This is very different than the continuous and instantaneous micro corrections made to a relatively light DD platter. As I wrote above, it is possible to design even a direct drive with corrections to avoid the the discernible micro corrections and sound good; it has been done for generations. And yes, Fremer realizes this! And it is also very possible that some people cannot hear the differences. It happens all the time in audio. |
I can attest to the current crop of higher end belt drive TT using speed sensing devices to feedback to the speed controller so operating in a similar fashion to top end DD tables.How slow this system will react to speed changes to adjust itself! IMHO it is a very bad engineering. |
