Nude Turntable Project

Halcro: yes, difficult to find but patience pays off. Mine is cosmetically in very fine condition--but there are speed problems. I bought it so I could test your theory about vintage direct drives and 'living dangerously'. That and it was just too cheap to pass up. It was sent directly to Bill Thalmann's hands. I'm confident he can locate and fix the problem. I plan on buying that pigskin mat. Thanks for the advice.

My table is the ql10 so I will keep in plinth for a month or so to get accustomed to the sound. I'll try to set up my pod next to the plinth as well but I suspect that I won't have the shelf space. Ultimately, I plan to go nude because that's how I roll (as the kids like to say). It depends though: I might like the plinthed sound?

Yes, many comparisons to be made. I'll choose ten tracks and make notes with each different set up to compare differences. The sp10 is sounding pretty darned good these days, so I'll be happily amazed if the Victor gives me something better.

Halcro,
The rubber straps are flat bungee cords - available at home-goods or hardware stores. Yes I clearly hear an improvement with them - that tin can needs dampening. Perhaps it would be better to coat it somehow.

My observations on poorly recorded albums is that the better I make my playback system the better I can hear the flaws in the album. I am quicker to chuck bad records now than I was in the past because they are unlistenable. Of course the good albums just open up wonders.

As far as plinth/no plinth, Lew and I just exchanged posts on Vinyl Asylum and he easily stated that bad plinths cause problems but that good plinths can be a benefit. My opinion is that good plinths sound better than bad plinths but at least in the case of good DD tables no plinth is even better.

Lew also made the point (Lew my apologies for quoting you and especially if I, by some stupidity on my part, misquote you) that idler drive tables require a good plinth and that string/belt drives often don't. That may well be so, but it doesn't say anything good about the vibration issues of idler drives, does it.

As I have stated before, somewhere, a plinth is unnecessary and often undesirable because it collects, holds, and returns vibration to the tone-arm and turntable. I hear the loss of this vibration as gain in all things musical - like going to a better turntable. Things improved for me as I went from full plinth to semi-plinth to no plinth. I am not going back.

Banquo,
You do realise that if you get the Victor pigskin mat.......your turntable won't be fully kosher?
Continuing to amaze me with all things audio......how do you suppose it is, that removing a heavy rubber mat from the aluminium platter of the TT-101 and replacing it with a paper-thin pigskin mat......can create a sound virtually identical to that of the 1.8Kg Cu180 copper mat from Micro Seiki?
This I can ruminate on as I watch the sunset from my terrace at Positano.
What are the peasants doing?

Obviously if you cant hear much difference between a copper mat and a pigskin mat, then your system is either not very resolving or it is too highly coloured to hear differences in components.

Dear Aigenga: Congratulations and welcome to the CLUB!

++++ " As far as plinth/no plinth, Lew and I just exchanged posts on Vinyl Asylum and he easily stated that bad plinths cause problems but that good plinths can be a benefit. My opinion is that good plinths sound better than bad plinths but at least in the case of good DD tables no plinth is even better. " +++++

Lewm is a very good friend and I respect him a lot, problem is that on that subject he is only speculating because he never gave/gives the opportunity to hear/test the DD non-plinth/nude alternative so he really can't know and can't affirm nothing about but only speculate against people like us that we know because we have the first hand experiences " before and after " the nude road.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.