Mag-Lev Turntables

Yeah, I would say 5K is in the ball park for today. We can always hope that the price goes down for better and better sound. I would say it has over the years. Whatever keeps interest in vinyl going is ok with me. The mag-lev might be a lot more fun for entry level than a rega P1 or 2. I’m curious to see if it improves or some part of it spawns the next idea. Worth watching for now if not buying, I never right anything off as one novelty idea just might strike lightning. 

Your choice the Mag-Lev w/a Project 9cc tonearm & a $79 Ortofon OM10 cart for $2197. Or a Rega P6 w/a RB330 Tonearm & an Ania MC cart $795 for two dollars less $2195.

It would be cool to hear those side by side. I have a feeling the Rega wins but that would be a fair bang for buck comparison. Thanks for looking it up. 

Also saw the Mag-Lev at an audio show,  three years ago for me. The turntable was running, but visitors could only listen via a headphone. Not familiar with the LP it was playing. Seeing it running was impressive, though.

Expecting that the demo used a good LP, arm, cartridge, headphone and amp, and was set-up properly, I was very sad it didn't sound right. The music sounded muffled, and also lacking in the high frequencies. That LP was the only one available for listening. I listened only for a very short time.

Looking at the platter floating and rotating by magnetic energy, I could see that the platter was going very slightly side-to-side. I wonder what other rigid body vibration modes are present in this floating platter and how these are controlled. I especially wondered about the modes from the radially-inward-moving, eccentric, downward force applied by the arm on basically a magnetically suspended flywheel.

Here is the engineering principle that must be observed when designing a plinth for a turntable:

The plinth must be as rigid and as acoustically dead (damped) as possible. The mounting of the platter bearing in the plinth will be thus coupled as rigidly as possible to the mounting of the tonearm. If it is not, any vibration at all can be interpreted by the pickup (arm and cartridge) as a coloration.

IOW, if the arm and surface of the platter are able to vibrate at all, if they are always in the same plane of vibration, the pickup will not be able to pickup noise or coloration on that account. So a magnetic suspension simply isn't going to work; coloration is guaranteed.