A Copernican View of the Turntable System

No. No hope for the future. The amount of money that those JP & Swiss giants had invest in their time, has never find justice. The origin of withdrawn the Hi-Fi's market commercial balance is emerged by the low expectations of the new enthusiasts about the music reproduction. The conspiracy between audio magazines and some groups of splay hacks with the lust to become wealthy without hard work & initial capital, becomes the new order of industry that meet with success the manipulation of the masses. When the giants retired from the field, the "cheap & effective" way becomes the new Bible for TT. The purposeful meaning of which, is to offer just a small fidelity percentage (just like the iPod). It was more than expected the apperance of the bold & shining (but even more poorly designed & lousy executed) to become the new standard of this hustler status quo. Τhe Saskia, The Beat, & Daniel's new project, are more than careful studies on TT subject. The present world economy is ruthless for the investor who wants to explore the limits and takes care of everything in his project, but more so for the consumer who wants to buy a honest product. So, taking the liberty of pricing these projects in order to give some justice is not a hit or miss act anymore. It is the final destructive chapter of a lost cause. To say that these TT's are our last hope, implies the premise that we have the ability to purchase them in this life.

...is there really hope for the future?

No.

Dear Nandric, there is indeed a very good reason why so many designers do use those small (inexpensive) motors.
They do fit oh so well into the production budget.
Cheers,
D.

Halcro,

In your opinion, are the SME 30 or 30/12 poorly understood sprung belt-drives". Are the rediscovered great DD's that much better than the SME 30? What about the TW Acustics AC3? It has no suspension, but it is a belt drive.

I'm just curious if anyone thinks progress has been made since the 70s and 80s or are we only now at a point where we can make advances in turntable designs?

Dear Peterayer, neither in concept nor in technical execution have we seen any progress in turntable design in the last 3 decades.
Microprocessor controlling is really cheap today and that is about all that has changed.
The top-notch turntables of 1982 ( Micro Seiki RX/SX-3/5/8000 all w/dampened platter, Melco, Epic, original Platine Verdier with full magnetic bearing, Cotter (dd !! I prefer the Denon here ...) et al) do easily stand their ground against anything that came in the interim and was available through audio dealers.
Turntable design was about understanding the pretty simple task of spinning a record undisturbed and the guts and money to manufacture the resulting product following the requests.
The task was the same in 1980 as it is today.
We had some pretty serious companies going into turntable design with a squad of able engineers and serious budget in research and development.
Then we had some intelligent and gifted persons ( Jean-Constant Verdier, Mitchell Cotter et al ) who came up with superb and smart designs which stood the test of time for 30 years + to come.
The advance in turntable design was and is always possible.
It is a matter of seriousness, insight, consequence and the will to build a turntable without looking for market acceptance or economic reason.
We will see .... this winter.
Cheers,
D.