Turntable speed accuracy


There is another thread (about the NVS table) which has a subordinate discussion about turntable speed accuracy and different methods of checking. Some suggest using the Timeline laser, others use a strobe disk.

I assume everyone agrees that speed accuracy is of utmost importance. What is the best way to verify results? What is the most speed-accurate drive method? And is speed accuracy really the most important consideration for proper turntable design or are there some compromises with certain drive types that make others still viable?
peterayer
Adult persons watching the laser spot on the wall instead of listening to the music. This hobby really become some kind of 'decadent bourgeous inclination' as Lenin would
call it.
Dear Nandric, focussing the eye on the laser spot frees the mind to set for a kind of "zen meditation" and allows the music to flow directly into the heart and soul of man ....
See - it always depends how you use things ..;-) ..... but I admit being part of the decadent bourgeous inclination of mankind.
After all it took us (mankind) a long way to get here...
Cheers,
D.
Hmm. Something not mentioned so far with regards to speed stability is soundstage. Anyone who has heard a good tape machine knows what I mean.

When the 'table speeds up and slows down the skating forces on any radial tracking arm will change. This in turn places forces upon the stylus. In effect, the lateral tracking force of the stylus oscillates. IOW we hear the speed variation as an instability in the soundstage.

Tape is immune to this sort of thing. So are straight tracking arms.

When the machine is really good at speed stability, and if you have a concentric LP(!) then the soundstage will match that of tape.

When the total speed is off, sometimes I hear it due to the pitch, other times I hear it due to the timing. Musicians play things in certain keys and tempos for a reason. With some pieces a speed error is of no consequence and with others it means the heart and soul of the piece is not transmitted to the listener...
Dear Daniel, While Marx is your countryman I refuse to believe that my German friends are 'petty bourgeous'. On the contrary you are all the world citezens with some peculiar hobby. However 'love makes blind' is a Dutch proverb. Not easy to choose among the social rules between so many countries btw.

Regards,

Since Dertonearm did this to me once, when I erroneously attributed the phrase "one man's meat is another man's poison" to Shakespeare, I will now point out that Shakespeare is the oft-cited source for the quote "love is blind" (from The Merchant of Venice). This is not to say that a Dutch person did not also say it. And at perfect speed so as not to alter pitch.