Where is the significant point of diminishing returns on hi-end turntable?

mmporsche,  Forums become quickly side tracked in addition to being littered with opinions of individuals who obviously have never owned nor heard any similarly priced analog setup.  If posting another thread here has not yet convinced you of this already, then just give it time.  Where to draw the line, you ask, well just far enough to achieve your personal bliss... or maybe just beyond.  My opinion, coming from someone knowledgeable (myself), who lives for analog and music, around $25k, for pure playback ability the Artisan Fidelity Achates Idler drive, Reed 2A arm, and used Tron Electric phono preamp.  Another front end to consider, if going the belt drive route might be a TW Acustic Raven AC, but definitely a unique flavor and slightly more mellow to my ears.  TW's arms are decent but not my "cup of tea", if you will, so would try a Reed perhaps or Schroeder entry level instead.  The Herron tube phono stage might be another serious candidate if you cherish musicality and flexibility not to mention lies around your price range.  

Did someone mention a 1959 Carrera GT Speedster? Vintage Porsche for the collector, another real beauty...

Cheers,
Alexander

mmporsche - Quick links below.

Reed 2A http://www.reed.lt/products/tonearms/reed-2a/all/reed-2a
Artisan Fidelity Achates Idler Drive  http://www.artisanfidelity.com/new-products/achates-idler-drive
Tron Electric http://www.tron-electric.co.uk/
Herron VTPH2 Phono Stage http://www.herronaudio.com/vtph2specs.html
TW Acustic Raven AC http://www.tw-acustic.de/en/turntables/raven-ac

Alexander

mmporsche, Forums become quickly side tracked in addition to being littered with opinions of individuals who obviously have never owned nor heard any similarly priced analog setup.

This thread has already become littered with too many "Ferrari250's".

Car talk aside, Ferrari250 actually makes a cogent point which echoes something I wrote a while back in the thread; the OP needs to narrow down his choices based on picking a drive system before proceeding.  The best of the best belt-drive, idler-drive, and direct-drive turntables will each have a subtle sonic signature that is a product of its very nature.  Only by listening in one's own system can one discern which flavor is personally preferred over the long haul.  For example, after a lifetime of audiophilia, I find that I prefer idler-drive and direct-drive vs belt-drive, but I realize others may feel differently.  What I do think is that it takes more bucks to acquire a belt-drive that can compete at the same level with less costly idler- and direct-drive turntables. 

F250, I found the Carrera GT literally in a barn in far northern Vermont in 1979.  There was hay in the car, and some of the parts were in the rear of the barn covered with more hay.  The owner had advertised it in the NY Times, and up to the time I went to see it, had had virtually no responses, for $12,000 minus the correct engine.  I later acquired the factory correct original engine from an eccentric Porsche mechanic in Canada.  With its pushrod engine installed, I drove the Speedster from the purchase point somewhere outside Burlington, VT, to my home in Washington, DC, with no top on the car, praying it would not rain and that I would not freeze to death. It ran beautifully, and I enjoyed the trip.  There's nothing quite like a long star-lit night drive in a primitive open car.

Yes, Halcro, I would be in clover if I still owned those two cars.

The point of diminishing return is that where it will take significantly more investment in order to make a minor improvement- one that might not even be worth writing home about.

In LP reproduction you have four things that have to be tended to properly:

1) the arm must be able to track the cartridge such that there are no LPs made that can stress it in any way whatsoever. This requires a fair amount of adjustability of the arm. The ability of the arm to track the cartridge correctly is **far** more important than the actual choice of cartridge! Its the time spent setting up the arm correctly wherein lies the payoff.

2) vibration and damping control in the platter pad is a lot more important than most people think and is more important than speed control. It affects the tonality and neutrality of the 'table in a big way.

3) Rigid and absolute coupling between the platter spindle and the cartridge body must exist. To this end, the coupling and deadness between the platter bearing and the base of the arm must be absolute; further there shall be no play or 'slop' in the bearings of either the platter or the arm.

4) speed control is the least important but should not be ignored! If the speed varies slightly, any radial tracking arm with experience changing tracking pressure on the channels encoded in the groove. This results in a slight 'shimmer' in the soundstage, something that anyone who has heard a good RtoR setup knows exactly what I'm talking about (since tape is immune to this issue). You can't hear slight speed variation as pitch, you hear it as a shimmer in the sound stage.

The Triplanar easily represents the point of diminishing return in tonearms (if not also the state of the art). It has the world's hardest metal bearings, meaning that they can be adjusted for zero slop (which can't be done with jeweled bearings) and will stay that way for decades. Further, its the most adjustable arm made. It has a damped arm tube. The bearings are mounted in the plane of the LP surface, insuring constant tracking pressure with bass and warp. While there might be other arms that can do some things better, there is no arm that covers **all** the bases as well.

Platter pads are tricky. The unquestionably best one was made by Warren Gehl before he started at Audio Research. He recognized back in the 1970s how important controlling vibration in the LP was and spent close to 15 years getting it right. Its long out of production but is still the deadest and most neutral with the correct durometer. One of the currently available better alternatives (which we use on our turntables) is the platter pad made by Oracle. The pad should be the same hardness as vinyl (not harder and not softer) so as to not reflect vibration or favor a frequency band. In addition it should have damping properties to control both the LP and the platter. Its a big deal and hugely ignored or plain just misunderstood, including by most manufacturers!

As far as the 'table itself, the new Technics SL1200G is an example of diminishing return. The only turntable made that is more speed stable is the Technics SP-10 MkIII (that is to say, the performance of the new SL1200G is closer to the SP-10 MkIII than is the SP10MkII; place a Sutherland Timeline on its platter and you will see what I mean). In addition, the new SL1200G (quite unlike the older SL1200s) has a rigid plinth that is also damped (with three different damping systems and the platter is damped too). It is surprisingly well thought out.

If one mounted a Triplanar on this turntable (which is possible as the stock arm is easily removed), one would have achieved a very good example of the point of diminishing return, as such a machine will easily compete with turntables costing 10s of thousands of dollars more no worries and will easily blow away cheaper examples.

Triplanar 'Classic' arm: ~$5000
Technics SL1200G $4000
Oracle platter pad $300
cartridge of your choice:

That fulfills the diminishing returns criteria. I think there are more examples, but this combo seems to be one of the best.