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Wow/Flutter and Speed Stability

I'm planning to purchase the Feickert Adjust+ to measure wow and flutter of my TT and as many other TT's that I can access to try and create some correlation of speed stability to drive system, motor type, belt vs thread vs tape, tension, and platter weight. Of course I will try various tests on my own TT and am interested to put some measurements behind the observations.

In my opinion, speed stability and pitch stability as a result, are very noticeable sonically and comes across as bass weight and definition, a large expansive soundstage, a lively sense of clarity, and explosive dynamics.

In my opinion, these characteristics coming from speed stability can greatly outweigh differences in tonearms and cartidges.

Have any of you used this software or other method on your TT's? Can you share your measurements or observations?

Andrew
aoliviero
80stech
20 posts
 
Looks cool, but the whole thing depends on how much wow & flutter is on the test record. Not much mention is made of what is on the test record or how accurate it is. I use a scope to set up my turntable but don't worry about wow & flutter as my TT has an extremely low WF spec and great speed accuracy. I have heard differences in everything imaginable in my TT set up EXCEPT W&F and speed.
mosin
410 posts
 
A good tool that I have acquired recently is the Sutherland Timeline. Look on YouTube, and you'll see how it works. There is a demo there. Anyway, it is a great item, especially if you set up turntables frequently.

Disclaimer:
I don't sell it, but I do like it.

Win
Saskia Turntables
dougdeacon
3,338 posts
 
Win,
Unless I misread the specs, the Sutherland Timeline has a resolution of just one mark per revolution of the LP. At that low resolution the Timeline can only see a very coarse average speed.

That may suffice for basic TT setup, but it can't tell us anything about speed variations which occur and correct themselves within a single platter revolution (e.g., by averaging or cancelling). Higher resolution tools will reveal momentary stylus drag effects, motor cogging and other short duration events the Timeline can't see. You can't measure microns with a yardstick. ;-)

We use a strobe disk Paul made in Corel Draw. Like the Timeline it's small enough to use with an LP playing, to capture stylus drag effects, but it has as many marks/revolution as he could fit in without going nuts. That ennables visual observation of much shorter duration anomalies.

WRT Andrew's experiment, what he'll learn depends not only on the pitch accuracy of the test tone (as 80stech noted) but also on the resolution of the Feickert thingy, which I don't know.
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