Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

Jean, what about my comment that vibration is the other killer of turntable sound quality, aside from variations in the speed of rotation? I used to be able to FEEL the motor vibration in my old Rek-O-Kut (and I confess I never did a thing to tune or even lubricate the motor). I think its plausible that belt drive turntables came to dominate partly because they introduced less vibration where the stylus meets the grooves, especially after they began to be designed with the motor separated and isolated from the body of the table itself. It seems to me that this explains why the vibration-killing techniques you've been developing - massive multi-layer plinths, direct coupling, glass-reinforcing, motor tuning, etc. - are what have allowed the inherently superior speed stability of idler wheel drive systems to come through and Crush the Belt Drives. (I realize that saying belt drive systems may have been superior in any way is asking for it! But one of the many things I've liked about this thread is that it's non-ideological. The enthusiasm for discovering how good Lencos and other idler wheel drive machines can sound has been based on HOW GOOD THEY SOUND, not on an ideological belief in their inherent superiority in every respect.)
Bob

I don't argue at all, and never did, that belt-drive was developed to reduce noise and pitched that way, Bob, it is implicit in what I wrote already: "The CLD plinths, which are dead neutral and I believe superior when made up of humble birch-ply/MDF, absorb and kill off noise (ESPECIALLY when Direct Coupling is implemented), and the more the mass, the more effective it is," and "The trick is that big, solid plinth you build at Home Depot." Meaning that I acknowledge the plinth is to reduce noise first, and to improve speed stability as a consequence as well. But the fact is that the Lencos when in production had lower rumble figures than the then-rising belt-drive Linn LP12:

"02-20-04: Willbewill
Here are some interesting facts about idler drive decks and rumble: In 1962 Garrard 301 cost £ 17 14s 6d plus tax whilst the Goldring Lenco GL70 (predecesor of GL75) cost £ 22 10s plus tax (admittedly it had an arm and 301 didn't) but it shows it wasn't a cheap deck. Interestingly in 1976 GL75 still had a £ 10 price lead over 401. Rumble figure for 401 was quoted as 'almost non-existent' - I haven't been able to find a rumble figure for GL75 but the GL78 which was more expensive and had a slighly bigger and heavier platter (but I think it used the same motor?) came in at -60dB (original LP12 only quoted 'better than -40dB!).
regards
willbewill"

Anyone who has set up a Lenco on bricks can attest to the fact there is no rumble, assuming the basics have been attended to. The most popular plinths at the moment for Garrards are low-mass two-tier designs with open architecture which have no Direct Coupling and no high-mass, and yet no rumble is reported.

Which is to say, that when the facts are gathered, it is evident that the rumble issue was always exaggerated by the Belt-Drive Conspiracy in order to promote - and sell - the belt-drives. In fact it was also in the best interest of both Garrard and Lenco (as they saw it) to go along with the belt-drive thing, as it was much cheaper to build a belt-drive, and the profits accordingly greater. It didn't help that Garrard themselves recommended that worst of all possible solutions: fixing the Garrard to a flexible plywood sheet and depending on rubber to isolate, and placing that on a hollow box. What amounted to a determined effort to exaggerate and amplify any noise coming from the deck.

So, while the noise coming from the latest belt-drives are lower than they have ever been, it is seen that this is true also for the idler-wheel drives. The plinth does not remove an audible source of noise, what it really does is reduce an inaudible noise, the noise-floor, even lower so that finer and finer details (and consequently things like transient attack and atmosphere) become more and more audible. The mass also focuses even more the drive system so that speed stability is even further enhanced (by preventing even contaminating micro-movements, like a noise-floor).

So, to put it plainly, I see the whole noise issue as incidental and not crucial: the plinth, and proper restoration, removes that as an issue. Or in yet other words, of course noise must be attended to, and it is. That taken care of, as it must, it becomes purely a matter of which drive system is superior. As I have repeatedly written since the beginning, in adopting the belt-drive they threw the baby (music: PRaT, SLAM, bass, gestalt) out with the bathwater (noise), and ignored the evidence of their senses, i.e. that with the [purely theoretical] banishment of the noise, they had lost the musical POWER. They lied to themselves, convincing themselves there had been no price, no losses. And, as I have written repeatedly, since the music is paramount, even if there had been a noise issue, it is a better choice to live with the noise and embrace the greater musicality, than to make great sacrifices in musicality in order to reduce noise. All who prefer vinyl (with its ticks and pops) to digital make this choice. But, since the noise issue was in fact a phantom from the beginning, we do not have to make this choice, we can just go out and try to hear an idler-wheel drive and see what it brings to the party, without any fear of noise, and decide which is the superior drive system!!

That's fascinating! You're asserting that when the new LP-12 was becoming all-the-rage, the then current production Lencos (at least the GL 78) actually had better rumble figures, as well as superior speed stability! If so, there goes my speculation that belt drives became dominant because they actually had something to offer - less vibration, to compensate for their poorer speed stability.

If that's true, then I can only think of two explanations. One is that the tonearms that came on the Lenco, Garrard, etc. weren't nearly as good as the newer designs people were putting on the LP-12, and this disadvantaged the belt drive machines by comparison.

The other is that turntable companies knew that belt drive turntables were inferior, but favored them for the sake of making higher profits, and deliberately misled consumers with advertising proclaiming the superiority of belt drives. And audio reviewers were taken in by the blitz of hype and/or subtly bought off with ad revenue and free samples. I hope this wasn't the case.

But if it was, it wouldn't be the first or only time companies have acted like that. I have a friend who was once a designer for GM. He was getting assignments in the 1970s to do things like take door handles that bolted on and redesign them with plastic plugs that push/snap into place (easier to assemble) and eventually break (so GM could make money on selling parts at outrageous markups). At the same time, Japanese automakers were going all-out for quality. The U.S. car company "cheapening" strategy raised profits for many years, but eventually caught up with them. My friend quit GM, by the way, and turned to making high-end bicycles.

If I had read Da Thread from earlier on, I would have known your views on this, Jean. But now that I see what they are, I suspect your ultimate objective is to force those degrading-for-profit companies to eat their belt drives as they're confronted with a surging demand for ilder wheel drive turntables. Bob

Anyone remember "Perfect Sound Forever"? Even the most rabid Digitophiles would now admit that was a load of horse-sh*t, being at the end of decades of improvements since then. And yet the mainstream press trumpeted it across all lands as if it were accepted, proven wisdom without making a single attempt to dig deeper, as did the larger specialized audio press (a few smaller publications excepted). Apply this history to science too, including current much-lauded theories and activities.

But, there is apparently Balance in the Universe: the American car companies with their planned obsolescence are now paying for their cynical decision to go for the bucks and sell off their integrity, and simultaneously provided a door (and financial ruin for themselves...much as the hired CEOs who have no stake other than their bonuses and who currently plunder these companies care) for the Japanese car companies to take over by simply building reliable and dependable cars. Had the music companies not touted "Perfect Sound Forever" and gone for the much-greater profits allowed by the digital media (anyone remember them saying prices would drop?), then music would not today be downloadable, which has killed CD sales and allowed large-scale piracy/downloading to the now computer-armed people and their handy-dandy internet connections. Poetic Justice. Perhaps I am part of the Universal Balance in action: the Poetic Justice of the similar belt-drive phenomenon!

It was the duty of the the belt-drive designers (being experts, and this is true of all scholars and, indeed, Thinking Men on any subject) to think to reinvestigate the Fundamental Assumption of their craft (once the Assumption had been, like Perfect Sound Forever, trumpeted and accepted): that the belt-drive was superior. They didn't, and today we are saddled with $100K machines, an admission if ever there was one that the system is deeply flawed (else why the necessity for such extremes?).

For those who continue to doubt the idlers like the Lenco are true high-end machines, use your heads: the original thread almost reached 4000 posts and lasted for almost 3 years before it was deleted because of an unprecedented success in standing up to and beating a myriad of past and current high-end belt-drives. All the Lenco (and by extension idler) websites and discussion posts which exist today exist because of this success: the Lenco is a proven and true high-end machine, as are the Garrards. Now that the news is in and the latest versions have defeated both an EMT 948 (and by extension CRUSHED the belt-drives it had CRUSHED...very pricey current belt-drives) and a Platine Verdier (which anyone would admit represents close to the pinnacle of the current belt-drive art), the fight is truly on, and the idlers an actual threat.

As in the days of Linn-, VPI- and Well-Tempered-crushings: given the Law of Diminishing Returns which states that beyond a certain point improvements are incremental (and if the Platine Verdier is not beyond this point then nothing is), then what does it mean that a Garrard 301 in high-mass plinth (very definitely no better than a Lenco) has CRUSHED a Platine Verdier?!? Could even a Walker accomplish this?!? So just how good is the idler-wheel system, embodied by either Lenco or Garrard? This will emerge in the coming months and, if necessary, years.

But, Bob, I advise you to not discuss these weighty matters of misinformation and deception with your audio buddies, and simply stick to the inert high-mass plinth, and the effect this has on both speed stability and noise, and of course the matter of true speed stability and the idler-wheel drive system (motor and wheel and platter as a closed system). Ask them to absorb any more, and they will rebel and deny the evidence of their senses, which some might do anyway. Let the implications rise up and sink in on their own. Vive la Lenco, Vive la Idler-Wheel!!!

Hey Jean,

The stock Lenco has a sprung suspension which you wisely recommend defeating. I know first hand that the Lenco is no great shakes with the suspension engaged. Now the Lenco is quite susceptible to foot-fall without a massive plinth, so it's no wonder that the suspension was regarded as de rigeur back in the day of stock, lighweight plinths and dancing in the living room. But the heavy plinth is pretty crucial, by your account, to the superiority of Lenco/idler performance over belt drive. Maybe LP12 belt drive plus sprung suspension beats Lenco idler plus sprung suspension.

My point is this: possibly *you* discovered the combination of idler/nonsuspended/heavy plinth design which is what really makes the Lenco and its similar brethren so superior (as the Lenco Green Monster you made me proves nightly). Perhaps, back in the day, the LP12 really did trounce the competition, suspended and lightweight as it was. If that's so, there was something more than noice reduction theory and cost efficiency that led to the rise of the belt drive.

And one would think there would be more than just theory. After all, Ivor the Linn guy made his case back then by the same sorts of emprical means you recommend -- indeed even more extreme. He went aroud to Hi Fi stores and challenged the staff to put his TT at the front end of their cheap rig, and test that combo against their own best TT in front of their best rig. LP12 reputedly won enough of those battles to become the reference deck, and solidify the belt drive as the system of choice.

What say you, sage of the platter spinners?