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.
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.