Do you use variable speed on your turntable?

Ummm... Boys.... How is one to tune one's turntable to A440 or some variant thereof without an LP that bears a recorded A440 tone? A tone generator is only half of what one needs. I know of no test LP that has such a band on it, but possibly one exists. And even if one has both the necessary pieces of equipment, one is still dependent on a good sense of pitch. It might be better to run the tonearm cable directly into a calibrated oscilloscope, assuming you have the needed test LP. That would eliminate subjective judgement of pitch. (I ain't doin' any of this; I'm just sayin')

The beauty of the KAB strobe is that it runs on batteries and so gives a constant frequency regardless of what's coming out of your wall socket. It's very accurate, and I doubt a laser record weight is much better, just more spectacular and easier to monitor from your listening chair.

It's very accurate, and I doubt a laser record weight is much better, just more spectacular and easier to monitor from your listening chair.

Written by a man who has not understood what he has witnessed in the Timeline in action.
The Kab strobe (and I have one) is NOT.......and I repeat.....NOT accurate nor able enough to detect instantaneous stylus drag.
The Timeline is.

If the need be, I would use my trusty guitar tuner which consists of a simple @ tuning fork. "BINGGGgggggg..."

Halcro, When you made your observation with the laser, did you then actually do the experiment of seeing whether you could observe the phenomenon of wandering speed with the Raven, using your KAB strobe and disc? And did the KAB fail to detect the problem? If so, I stand corrected. If not, how can you argue? In principle, the strobe and disc should be quite sensitive to changes in speed due to stylus drag. I am quite sure that the KAB would have picked up the speed variability I observed in my neighbor's home using his Timeline. But we did not do the experiment. Fortunately, he has cured the problem, so we cannot do the expt now.

Yes Lew, I have done the experiment with the KAB strobe.
The problem is that stylus drag is instantaneous and not consistent so whilst the KAB may waver at times.......it quickly settles back to a constant speed thus depriving one of any quantification of the drag?
With the Timeline.......the stylus drag has a permanent effect thereby 'shifting' the laser line for all future revolutions.......and additional drag just keeps shifting some more so that you have a permanent view of the graphics of this phenomenon.